Saturday 24 July: Regulating access to every kind of public activity with Covid passports

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/07/23/letters-regulating-access-every-kind-public-activity-covid-passports/

595 thoughts on “Saturday 24 July: Regulating access to every kind of public activity with Covid passports”

      1. Morning Stormy. Looks like it. Though I admit there’s not much to write about!

  3. Morning all, I am early this morning, that’s what happens when thunder and lightning with torrential rain wakes you up during the night. Still thunder in the distance so time for a mug of tea. ⛈

      1. Morning, yes it is all my fault and has always been so.

        Slinks away in a guilty manner to eat more baked beans! 🌪

    1. Good morning all. I can report exclusively that I intend to write my own memoirs, entitled “My life with Olaf Senior – by his relict Elsie”. Any publishers on here interested can bid on my book. Unlike the Ginger Whinger, opening bids will start at just £15 million – a saving of £3 million to any successful publisher.

      :-))

      PS – I plan to follow up my memoirs with another book called “Cooking with Elsie” which will include recipes for home-made marmalade and rhubarb crumble.

      PPS – Book Number Three will be called “My Life As A NoTTLer” (At this rate I will soon become a billionaire!)

      1. Hmm, Morning, Elsie, You’re following my path; my autobiography, Not A Bad Life, is already published on Kindle and charts my life up to my 70th birthday and I’m now keeping what is essentially a journal, entitled Passing Three Score Years and Ten – effectively charting the happenings since May 2014 and on top of that, I have also a pretty comprehensive Cook Book that has been made available to Nottlers via ‘Mediafire’.

        1. Tom, I have read and thoroughly enjoyed Not a Bad Life and Passing Three Scores and Ten – thank you. I would have had a look at your Cook Book but am currently struggling with my diet so no more “treats” for me for a while. On a serious (non-Elsie) note I have long had ambitions to write my own autobiography but this is one of my “projects for another day” so maybe I will keep it as a winter project – this year my main projects have been in the garden.

      2. “Asinine Sausages I have Met on my Travels”

        No charge – you can have that title on me.

    2. The first is a nursery book with only pictures in it; the second is child’s first reader aimed at those under the age of 6; the third is a comic strip and the fourth has no words it of more than two syllables.

      1. And no doubt, like the 1940s comic (was it called Tiny Tots or was it Chick’s Own?), the two syllable words will be written as “writt-en” to help the youn-ger rea-ders.

    3. All proceeds from the Duke’s book, due to go on sale in late 2022 – the year of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee – will go to charity.
      I wonder which charity – a Sussex Foundation perhaps [very Bliaresque]?

    4. All proceeds from the Duke’s book, due to go on sale in late 2022 – the year of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee – will go to charity.
      I wonder which charity – a Sussex Foundation perhaps?

  6. Morning all,

    Having registered for NHS Systm1 through my GP practice I now have access to what is supposed to be the easiest way to manage my health appointments and records on line.

    It has now been running for nearly five years

    https://youtu.be/-JMDhkbj080

    Systm1 has allowed me to be notified by text on my old smartphone of the time and location of my COVID jab and I can order and print repeat prescriptions on my desktop computer. However, I still have multiple identities in both electronic and paper media.

    However in order to get a COVID passport I need to have yet another identity by registering with the NHS app on my desktop or the NHS COVID app on a smartphone that is capable of running the latter.

    I reckon I already have a piece of paper with the personal signature of two medical professionals attesting to my status, batch nos and date of my COVID jab. I cannot find it in electronic form in Systm1.

  7. Covid could be spread through flatulence, say ministers. 23 July 2021.

    The official advice is to open a window to increase ventilation and slow the spread of Covid, but now there could be an added incentive – the virus may also be spread by flatulence.

    Ministers have privately pointed to evidence that Covid could be spread by people breaking wind in confined spaces such as lavatories. One said they had read “credible-looking stuff on it” from other countries, although government scientists are yet to produce a paper on the matter.

    What about Bad Breath? Osmosis? Telekinesis? If you believe any of this stuff you want your intestines examined!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/23/covid-could-spread-flatulence-say-ministers/

      1. An early example of Biological warfare……

        Morning folks – Boating ‘wet play’ today…….

    2. “It’s proctological my dear Watson!”
      “OK Sherlock, I can see you now!”

  8. Sigh,here comes the “Carrots” you can damn well bet the “Stick” won’t be far behind…

    “Families could get rewards for healthy living in new war on obesity

    Lifestyle habits such as taking part in a regular run or walking to school daily could be linked to free treats in pilot scheme”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/23/families-could-get-rewards-healthy-living-new-war-obesity/
    Would need a lot of “monitoring” wouldn’t it?? Full Chinese social credt system here we come
    “Put that wine and meat back on the shelf citizen and report to the gulag transport off aisle 3,you really didn’t think we wouldn’t notice your anti-government activity on social media??”
    BTL comments are worth a look

    1. Here’s a BTL I liked:

      From the government who locked you in your house, harassed people out
      walking by following them with drones, closed gyms, prevented children’s
      sport and allowed the media instead to bombard us with fear, negativity
      and fast food adverts.

      Sorry, I don’t for one minute think they have the best interests of our health at heart.

  10. To be fair, if we are going to achieve the zero net carbon figure as is planned and well on track at the moment here then the governments of the free world are going to need all this biotech surveillance and authoritarian control over everyone in order to achieve it.

  11. Yo All

    I await, with bated breath, the introduction of a law that makes COVID Passports compulsory for entering ALL
    places of Worship in UK, not just Churches!

        1. Given their position, worshippers in mosques should be banned from there, on the flatulence quotient alone.

        2. Given their position, worshippers in mosques should be banned from there, on the flatulence quotient alone.

      2. You underestimate the spite emanating from Canterbury.
        This is the excuse he needs to close a lot of churches.

    2. I don’t think a COVID passport, being in digital form with a timeout, can be evidentially legitimate.
      A certified document on paper however is a different matter.
      I refer the matter to our legal counsel for a categorical 😺😺statement.

    3. I think the weasel words are that it’s not compulsory.
      They know they can rely on Justin Welby to push the great reset, and wimpy C of E lady vicars to go along with it.
      The mosques will not be breaking the law if they don’t enforce jab passports.
      However, they will of course tell everyone that they are enforcing them.

    2. Cats on the roof tops? (when you wake up in the morning and you’re feeling simply grand!)

    1. Apparently you’re spreading covid. Don’t know if the weather’s also to blame.

  14. It’s an ill wind ……

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/23/covid-could-spread-flatulence-say-ministers/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    “Covid could be spread through flatulence, say ministers

    Source says officials have read ‘credible-looking stuff’ on theory from other countries including Australia

    23 July 2021 • 7:00pm

    Scientists examine wastewater for traces of Covid as part of a Cranfield University study

    Scientists examine wastewater for traces of Covid as part of a Cranfield University study Credit: Christian Trampenau/Cranfield University/via Reuters

    The official advice is to open a window to increase ventilation and slow the spread of Covid, but now there could be an added incentive – the virus may also be spread by flatulence.

    Ministers have privately pointed to evidence that Covid could be spread by people breaking wind in confined spaces such as lavatories. One said they had read “credible-looking stuff on it” from other countries, although government scientists are yet to produce a paper on the matter.

    The source said there had been evidence of a “genomical-linked tracing connection between two individuals from a [lavatory] cubicle in Australia.”

    There were also “well-documented cases of diseases spreading through waste pipes during lockdowns in Hong Kong when the U-bend had dried out”.

    The science is not definitive, however, and another minister told The Telegraph that as Covid is “a respiratory disease, transmission and shedding is mostly taking place through the mouth and actually mainly the nose”.

    A spokesman for Boris Johnson said he was not aware of claims that the virus can be spread by flatulence. The spokesman added: “We keep the latest scientific evidence under review.”

    Healthy people tend to break wind between five to 25 times a day, and testing has found that SARS-CoV-2 can be present in faecal material.

    The risk of spreading Covid this way is thought to be less, however, because wearing underpants and clothes below the waist would act to filter out harmful particles in the same way a face mask can.

    Suggestions of spreading the virus through flatulence first emerged in Australia last year when Norman Swan, an Australian medic, advised on an ABC podcast: “No bare-bottom farting.”

    Scientists discovered earlier in the pandemic that genetic fragments of the virus could be detected in sewage. In the UK, officials ramped up a programme to analyse wastewater for early signs of coronavirus in May, and the programme now covers two-thirds of England’s population.

    It has helped with the detection of local outbreaks or the presence of variants of concern, which can be linked to specific communities via the sewage treatment network, and Dr Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, described it as “an additional detection system” for Covid.”

    1. I expect the publication of a Government White Toilet Paper on this tissue.

    4. “Scientists examine wastewater for traces of Covid as part of a Cranfield University study.”

      Seems like a shit job to me.

  15. In the midst of our “Casedemic” I’m sure you remember the massive publicity (sarc) from the MSM when the American Food and Drug administration condemned the Lateral Flow Tests as useless

    “The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has raised

    concerns about the accuracy of the Innova rapid self-administered

    lateral flow tests.

    The FDA has instructed US citizens to stop

    using the tests amid “significant concerns that the performance of the

    test has not been adequately established, presenting a risk to health”.

    https://nursingnotes.co.uk/news/clinical/us-recalls-lateral-flow-tests-amid-significant-accuracy-concerns/

    Guess what the “Gold Standard” PCR test has failed its review and must be withdrawn

    https://twitter.com/Fran73113786/status/1418344141394698240
    So there we have it,the WHOLE basis for the continuing lockdown,testing, is proved to be an utter sham
    Heads must roll

    1. Once again a nonsensical decision. If the tests aren’t fit for purpose why allow their continued use until December 2021?

      1. Need time to set up an alternative. Many false results seen preferable to no results.

    2. Just before Christmas 2020, my brother-in-law’s son’s girlfriend (Jane) developed cold-like symptoms. Her boss sent her home and instructed her to take a Covid-19 test. The result of the PCR test was positive, so she was told to quarantine, and her boyfriend (my nephew Tom) and his father (Steve) were told to get a test, as all three of them live in the same house. Tom’s PCR test came back positive, Steve’s came back indeterminate. Because of this latter test, all three of them decided to take another PCR test, about a week later. The results of these second tests were all negative! Tom and Steve did not develop any symptoms, whilst Jane just had a mild cold.

      About three months later, all three of them did indeed contract Covid-19, with recognised symptoms and positive PCR test results. This just illustrates the fact that these PCR tests are not 100% reliable. I wonder how many give false results.

    3. They’re just giving time for replacement kit to be found. Probably just the same but owned by Soros or Gates.

    2. And those that approve of this wonder why those who can only dream of such a lifestyle, and are paying for these people to have it, are resentful.

      1. Our politicians want us to hate and loathe ourselves which is why they want those from alien cultures to have more advantages than the white, indigenous population.

        Of course they want Shakespeare banned in schools and even in universities. The blasted man was not woke enough and he hit nails on the head rather too often:

        “That nature that condemns its origin cannot be bordered certain in itself.”

        [King Lear]

    4. Why is the small girl bagged up? Completely unnecessary. And I suppose Daddy is doing brain surgery….

      1. Daddy is not in the picture. He will have his own tax payer funded house with his other wife.

  17. Morning all

    SIR – I fully support the Government’s policy on Covid passports, which are essential to Covid security.

    The system must be rolled out to every premises that we routinely use, and people’s documents must be checked at every opportunity. Only those who are vaccinated must be given the right to use shops, public transport or places of entertainment.

    The behaviour of the unvaccinated is contrary to the interests of society and they must in effect have their citizenship withdrawn. None must hold a position of responsibility such as that of a doctor, teacher or lawyer, because they are a threat to the nation’s health. Ultimately we must consider placing them in protective custody.

    Am I exaggerating, or is this the thin end of the wedge?

    Mike Tickner

    Warminster, Wiltshire

    SIR – If Covid passes are a “conspiracy against freedom” (Madeline Grant, Comment, July 21) then, surely, so are driving licences. Both, essentially, do the same thing: certify that you are capable of moving freely through society without injuring or causing the death of yourself or other people.

    Advertisement

    Why should one be deemed acceptable but not the other?

    Patrick Miller

    Seaton Carew, Co Durham

    Placeholder image for youtube video: bPdUA2GtDas

    SIR – What is the difference between the Government coercing British society to have the vaccine and the Chinese Communist Party’s “social credit” system?

    Both seem to mean that you are disadvantaged if you don’t do as the state expects of you “voluntarily”.

    Paul Gaynor

    Windermere, Cumbria

    SIR – In the spring (Letters, April 5), in response to Lord Greenhalgh failing to rule out Covid certificates for churches, I asked whether sidesmen would be retrained as bouncers so that only those with the right papers would be allowed entry.

    Four months later, it is barely credible that vaccine passports are being discussed for entry to public worship. Will there be a two-tier system – some churches open to all, while others insist on the right papers?

    Dr Penelope Upton

    Lighthorne, Warwickshire

    SIR – Will the Government tell tourists and British subjects vaccinated overseas how many more years its bureaucracy needs to recognise our fully vaccinated status?

    Advertisement

    If the NHS Covid passport is also the gateway for UK attractions, pubs and restaurants, a visit to Britain to see our relatives will become even more of an expensive prison confinement.

    Jonathan Evans

    Lantau, Hong Kong

    SIR – I have not heard the BBC report the reduction in infections, down 17 per cent over the past few days.

    It’s a great shame it is avoiding reporting some good news.

    Leslie Mitchell

    Dereham, Norfolk

    1. Mike Tickner is either being very ironic or he is a dyed in the wool Marxist propagandist.

  18. Hong Kong refugees

    SIR – As your report “Hong Kong crackdown: Thousands flee city amid surge in terrorism charges” (July 21) makes very clear, Hong Kong is no longer safe. Faced with the prospect of Beijing’s Big Brother rule, thousands of Hongkongers have fled the territory in search of a better life abroad.

    For those arriving in Britain, much must be done to support them. “Welcome hubs” are being set up, but information is needed on how the Government plans to protect them from pro-Beijing groups – a particular concern for students on university campuses.

    Hongkongers have already faced the erosion of their freedoms by the totalitarian Chinese Communist Party. We in Britain are proud of our freedom and democracy. Now we must use that privilege to support newly arrived Hongkongers who share our ideals.

    Advertisement

    Lord Shinkwin

    Tom Randall MP (Con)

    Vice-Chairs, All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hong Kong

    London SW1

    1. Lord Shinkwin might be proud of British freedom, but we must remind readers that the British Government has just approved the sale of the only

      chip maker in Britain to an entity owned by the Chinese Government.

      Great idea!

      After all, why do we need a chip maker in Britain? We can buy chips from communist China.

    3. We in Britain are proud of our freedom and democracy.

      Yes I used to be. When it still existed!

  19. Here’s the rest…….

    Just not cricket

    SIR – I watched some of the new Hundred game on BBC Two on Thursday. Any resemblance to the game of cricket was purely

    accidental.

    Aged about eight, I used to run home to watch the Test match on BBC in black and white. My heroes were Peter May, Denis Compton, Richie Benaud and later Ted Dexter, Colin Cowdrey and the wonderful Gary Sobers.

    I didn’t understand many of the rules but it didn’t stop my enthusiasm. I am still learning the finer points, but that is part of the appeal. The ECB is condescending in assuming that today’s young people can only enjoy a mutilated version of the game.

    A one-day 50-over match on a glorious Sunday afternoon is the best introduction to cricket but the ECB have annihilated the Royal London competition this year to make room for T20 (bad enough) and this ghastly Hundred game. It simply isn’t cricket!

    Christine Morris

    Chesterton, Huntingdonshire

    Whose cherries?

    SIR – My wife bought some cherries and strawberries in a branch of a renowned German retailer. The strawberries, grown in Angus, were called “Scottish”; the cherries, from the Garden of England, Kent, “British”.

    Why is this? Surely, they are English.

    Andrew Read

    Broughton-in-Furness, Cumbria

    Transgender talk

    SIR – Anne Jenkin (Comment, July 23) has done the cause of free speech a favour by opening it up to discussion of very important issues affecting women. Whatever one’s views on the subject of transgender, it is vital that we should all be able to discuss it without fear of being trolled, cancelled or subjected to abuse.

    We need (maybe through a parliamentary select committee) to consider the consequences of trans women sharing spaces formerly reserved for women. We must also consider competition in women’s classes in sport and single-sex female spaces in hospitals, prisons and refuges.

    These important issues cannot be addressed properly if people who want to air them lose their jobs, are removed from panels or otherwise threatened.

    We must also continue to use the word woman and reject ill-focused and insulting terms that are replacing it.

    Baroness Deech (Crossbench)

    London SW1

    People smuggling

    SIR – In August last year you reported that France was demanding millions of pounds from British taxpayers to stem the flow of migrants from the Continent. Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, then appointed Dan O’Mahoney, a former Royal Marine, as Clandestine Channel Threat Commander, with a brief “to end the heinous crime of people smuggling across Channel”.

    In November, Britain and France signed a new accord, and Ms Patel agreed to pay France £28 million to double the number of officers patrolling beaches to stop migrants crossing the Channel. Yet now we hear that Channel crossings this year have already overtaken the total for 2020 and that the Government has pledged a further £54 million to France.

    Surely the only way to stop this ever-increasing flow is to return immediately all who arrive on these shores.

    During their peak season, the RNLI should be saving the lives of those who have accidents at sea, not recovering those who knowingly put their lives at risk in the world’s busiest waterway.

    Geoff Pringle

    Long Sutton, Somerset

    Placeholder image for youtube video: XanJMRYrJmE

    SIR – Every day we hear of migrants attempting to gain entry to Britain.

    They originate from different countries and have passed through more than one other country on their way to Britain. The question is, why? Is it because the British Government is considered to be a soft touch?

    Graham Bravo

    Watford, Hertfordshire

    Survival of the fittest

    SIR – Caroline Nokes MP (Comment, July 22) thinks that harassment is a man saying: “You’re stunningly beautiful, can I take you out for a drink?”

    I worry for the future of our species.

    Carol Hunt

    Hereford

    Bottled water drought

    SIR – Pictures of supermarket shelves empty of bottled water (July 22) should be seen as a good thing. Never has a product been more useless to society and caused so much environmental damage (transport and plastic waste).

    It is to be hoped the supermarkets don’t restock this unneeded product. British tap water is perfectly drinkable and there is no need to be lugging gallons of water from shops.

    Ewan D Booth

    Macclesfield, Cheshire

    Buildings that jeer at the heritage of Liverpool

    Mann Island with a glimpse of the Port of Liverpool and Royal Liver buildings beyond

    Mann Island with a glimpse of the Port of Liverpool and Royal Liver buildings beyond CREDIT: John Wells/Getty Images

    SIR – Liverpool earned world heritage status (report, July 21) because of the energy and creativity of the Victorians and Edwardians.

    Despite Second World War bombing, many wonderful buildings survived and miraculously escaped the intentions of the modernists.

    To the west and north of the Three Graces (the Royal Liver Building, the Cunard Building and Port of Liverpool Building), soulless edifices add nothing to our city.

    Colin Wilkinson

    Aughton, Lancashire

    SIR – Unesco taking away world heritage status from Liverpool is actually a good and brave decision.

    For far too long in this country, councils and developers interested in their egos and profit margins have pushed redevelopments without understanding the impact they have on the fragile heritage of their cities.

    New works can be done without detriment to the historical landscape. Let us hope the decision brings in a more sensitive approach.

    Thomas Methuen-Campbell

    Swansea

    Perry Mason came to Britain thanks to Maigret

    SIR – Simon Heffer’s piece on Perry Mason (Hinterland, July 17) brought back memories of 1961 when I was part of a team of programme acquisition executives in offices on the roof of the old Lime Grove studios at Shepherd’s Bush.

    The BBC claimed that 80 per cent of programming was produced from its own resources. We were responsible for acquiring the other 20 per cent.

    We looked mainly for American comedy and music (Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Bilko, Dick Van Dyke, Perry Como) and long-form drama series (Dr Kildare, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) and always had a couple of Western series on the go, like Laramie and Overland Trail.

    Perry Mason commenced on the CBS Network in 1957 but four years later it had still not been selected by the BBC or ITV. The feeling was that this kind of courtroom drama would never work with British audiences, though it was already playing on the Continent and in Australia.

    In autumn 1960, the BBC produced Georges Simenon’s Maigret, starring Rupert Davies. This was proving a success on Monday nights.

    Production of a second series had not yet commenced when the BBC decided to maintain the Monday night slot with a continuing crime theme. So we were asked to come up with some quick suggestions. We decided to go with 13 episodes of Perry Mason. CBS agreed a special royalty of £1,500 for each 50-minute episode.

    Perry Mason had immediate impact. More episodes were bought and it was moved to Saturday prime time. The series continued to be shown through the 1960s and beyond.

    Bill Gilbert

    William Gilbert Associates

    Burnham, Buckinghamshire

    1. When I was a boy Denis Compton opened the village fête at St Mawes Castle and I got him to put his signature on my cricket bat.

      When I was a child people who lived in St Mawes had free access at any time to St Mawes Castle and my friends and I used to play there and fill jam jars with tadpoles and newts from the long rectangular pond. Of course now even the locals have to pay to get in.

  20. 335793+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    Saturday 24 July: Regulating access to every kind of public activity with Covid passports

    Just cannot be allowed to happen I did realise long ago that the electorate are so dangerously thick that dense is not a strong enough description.

    Seemingly we are heading for the herd being on managed day release
    The cameras are ALL in place these will shortly be joined by the LOUD speakers governing the herds daily movements.

    An anti politico “BIG BANG” must surely be building either that or mass appeasement via reset, repress, replace that is “in your face” picking up pace on a daily basis with the overseers protective kapos
    arriving and gaining members through the DOVER,morally illegal intake campaign.

    Currently the kids / youth of today ARE being left a legacy of CONTROLLED INCARCERATION via the polling booth voting pattern.

    1. 335793+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      Seems like the whole crock of sh!te is being given a thin veneer of “normal” as in allowed out under instruction.

      1. I was watching GB News last night and a chap appeared on it calling himself Neil Hamilton and saying he was the leader of UKIP. Is this true or is he a fraud?

        [Answers please in brown envelopes from the Harrod’s stationery department – mind you I feel he was probably stitched up]

        1. He was stitched up over that.
          Can’t remember the title nor the author, but there is an excellent book describing the manipulation of the court system by Fayed’s lawyers.

        2. 335793+ up ticks,
          MORNING R,
          On reflection the only UKIP founder member who proved via
          actions taken as leader to further the pro English / GB cause was Gerard Batten and by doing such for a year proved he could NOT be allowed to continue by the internal treacherous
          nEc inclusive of hamilton / nige.
          There cannot be any self respect among members that stay on after the Batten take down, as for funding check it out.

          By the by Batten on taking over as leader asked the membership for £100000 and in return received £300000 I believe that they still owe ex leader Richard Braine
          a thousand or two from their unsuccessful court case.

          IMO the current ukip is an additive to the lab/lib/con coalition.
          The sad thing is that the missed opportunity to build a credible opposition party under Batten was traded in by those that chose the brexit party under farage, NO questions asked via the NON members that proved to be a pro tory (ino) pro johnson group under “nige” a long,long,time tory (ino)
          covert coxswain.

      2. I was watching GB News last night and a chap appeared on it calling himself Neil Hamilton and saying he was the leader of UKIP. Is this true or is he a fraud?

        [Answers please in brown envelopes from the Harrod’s stationery department – mind you I feel he was probably stitched up]

  21. Get The Right Name

    Bernie goes to a friend’s home for dinner. Morris, the host, precedes every request to his wife with terms of endearment, calling her “Honey… My Love… Darling… Sweetheart… Pumpkin…” etc.
    Bernie looks at Morris and remarks: “It’s really nice that, after all these years, you still call your wife by those corny pet names.”
    Morris hangs his head and whispers, “To tell the truth, I forgot her name three years ago!”

  22. Cat news. Pickles is his old self again. He has to stay in until Tuesday for the wound to heal. He is tearing round the house- leaping over the furniture, doing the stairs two at a time – in a desperate attempt to say, “Look, I am right as rain – let me OUT.”

    1. That makes sense. Of those dying or in hospital with Covid, all had been to the toilet within the previous 28 days.

    2. That’s only for ‘asylum seekers’ who can’t hack life in ex-army barracks.

  25. “SIR – Caroline Nokes MP (Comment, July 22) thinks that harassment is a man saying: “You’re stunningly beautiful, can I take you out for a drink?”

    I worry for the future of our species.

    Carol Hunt
    Hereford”

    Wishful thinking by Caroline Nokes…….twice.

  26. Good morning all. Another cooler and overcast start to the day. 12°C on the yard thermometer.

  27. https://instagram.com/worldwidedemonstration?utm_medium=copy_link

    Starts Trafalgar Square at 1 – I might go though the weather seems uncertain.

    From the blurb:

    The PCCS bill (Bill 268 58/1 Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiUysCNm_vxAhW1tXEKHXEOAeIQFjAAegQIDxAD&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublications.parliament.uk%2Fpa%2Fbills%2Fcbill%2F58-01%2F0268%2F200268.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0dTfjRTts2bu9_5ua5JY5-)

    WILL be passed by September/October and this means any ‘organiser’ could receive a 10 year prison sentence! This won’t stop us protesting or marching but this may be the last time we can come together on this way.

    This day is a day for the people, for those who have been fighting for our freedoms, for family, children and elderly and those less able to march. This is a day for ALL!

    YOU ARE FREE PEOPLE! Please come along and listen to the speakers and join the community, then you can choose to join a marching group or stay to enjoy the music and more)

    The Bill contains some decent stuff but within it is some that is pretty un-British and dangerous.

    This country just needs to get on with things – be sensible around people who might get sick, and carry on. But while the govt reserves the right to force vaccines, deny entry to those who do not show the right papers, etc. business confidence cannot improve.

    It might even be worth getting a bit wet.

    1. I’m going to be standing in Hull rather than marching in London due to having buggered my knee up. My placard is the same as I’ve waved throughout – “No to vaccine passports”.

    2. I’ve got my big brolly ready, though the rain is now forecast to hold off till 5-ish. I don’t take my phone out to play any longer but I’ll be there.

  29. ‘Get your freedom back’: England manager Gareth Southgate urges young people to get Covid vaccines so we can ‘open up’. 24 July 2021.

    England manager Gareth Southgate has urged young people to get their freedom back by supporting the coronavirus vaccination programme.

    Yes come on everyone. Saint Gareth knows best and don’t forget to kneel and thank the NHS when it’s done.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9820059/Get-freedom-England-manager-Gareth-Southgate-urges-young-people-Covid-vaccines.html

    1. If he trained the vaccinators it might all get squirted at the ceiling anyway.

    2. Southgate is ingratiating himself with the fools running this country (into the ground) and is patently desperate for a knighthood.

  32. Today’s Graun has a photogallery ‘History of the Selfie’, for the most part unremarkable
    https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2021/jul/24/from-monkey-business-to-royal-photobombs-a-history-of-seminal-selfies-in-picture

    I had forgotten about this gem

    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/628a219674aad79984e13e5e03374a956d1ee59f/0_0_1500_1500/master/1500.jpg?width=720&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=07f87f53b4c5129953e7129ea92a95e2
    The Queen photobombs Hockeyroo Jayde Taylor’s selfie with teammate Brooke Peris at the Commonwealth Games. This photo quickly became a meme.

  33. That’s the 1st seven bags of today’s stint split into smaller loads and shifted.
    A 10 minute breather to finish off the mug of tea I started then back to the fray.
    Only 10 bags to go!

  34. This is a rant by a bloke who recounts some sorry tales of people who have asked him to install various types of heatpump. As a heat pump installer he will not be changing his gas boiler.

    He goes in depth into the logistics and economics of getting heat out our environment and shows that the Government may incentivise people to install them by hiking gas prices. In the end he concludes we will be missold replacing gas boilers with heat pumps just as we were when we bought diesels to save CO2 emissions.

    https://youtu.be/GhAKMAcmJFg

    1. I have no fewer than four, similar, luft/luft värmepumpar warming my house in the winter, but only one is switched on all the time. I could use them as air-conditioning units in the summer, too, but I prefer to open some windows. The houses here (with 15″ thick walls and triple-glazing) are well insulated.

      I don’t use mine for hot water. I have a separate electrical boiler for that. No gas in this village.

    3. 11 billion…..Almost the same amount as our Foreign aid donations.
      But as most of the rest of the world is coming here now, we wont have to fork out for that any more………oh hang on a mo !

      He’s absolutely spot on. And a real expert not someone who has been paid to say all that. But lets be honest politicians know absolutely eff all about anything.
      I ran a job about 15 years ago and the people had ground source heat pumps. I can’t remember how many thousands it all cost to install it, but they had a great deal of their garden trenched to install it all. The rear wall of his garage was like something at Jodrell bank. And even back then it was estimated it would never be cost efficient.
      We have friends who live in a Scandinavian kit home in Hertfordshire, we use to have meetings for a share club in his top loft room and with 6 people chatting it wasn’t long before he had to open the roof lights in the middle of winter.
      I’m going to send this to the guy who installed our brand new gas boiler.

    4. We can confirm that the costs of an heat pump are far in excess of heating by gas or oil.

      What he didn’t mention is that it takes ages to heat up, so you either wear your outside clothes at home for half an hour, or leave your heat pump

      on for 24 hours a day…which costs even more!

      1. You make a very valid point janerH.

        When I specified an upgrade to my original 16-22 kW gas boiler I chose a 40 kW boiler because the hot water and central heating were too slow coming on and the boiler was repeatedy firing up for long periods.

        Together with an uprated 40 kW heat transfer coil in the new insulated open vented hot water cylinder the boiler takes just 30 minutes to provide the necessary 55 degC water for the 12 litres per minute power shower in the morning and all the domestic hot water required during the day.

        The hot water cylinder does have two 3 kW immersion heaters in case of a boiler failure that are regulated by an off-peak timer but these will be far slower and more expensive to run ( 20p and 10p per kWh) than the boiler at 5p per kWh.

        Mr Rant does make reference to the necessity for having additional electric backup during winter fot heat transfer pumps that won’t be able to match the required heat demand.

    5. We can confirm that the costs of an heat pump are far in excess of heating by gas or oil.

      What he didn’t mention is that it takes ages to heat up, so you either wear your outside clothes at home for half an hour, or leave your heat pump

      on for 24 hours a day…which costs even more!

  35. Some of you with a high boredom threshold might recall my problems with Yodel – failed delivery Thursday, and two further failures yesterday [he still had 19 calls to make before us when his working day ended]. I spent 40 minutes talking to Yodel this morning online – all they could really promise was that they would try again today. The tracker has now been updated – the driver ONLY has 96 deliveries today [vice 119 yesterday] and we are number 89 – I don’t have a good feeling about our chances! I emailed the CEO this morning and got an auto reply saying he was on holiday [lucky him!]; I forwarded it to the address he gave for urgent matters!!

    1. It’s no wonder the white van men have such a stressful job and are dangerous drivers – who could keep up with that schedule?

      1. Some people have hair. Some people don’t.

        Fedora today: I might get a Homburg for winter.

        1. Cat flaps for me.
          Wool/tweed for aitumn/winter/spring, straw for summer, and a nice thin cloth one made from a Deutsches Bundesbank money sack for spring/summer/winter.

  37. 335793+ up ticks,
    8.15 am Morrisons, to my reckoning the store & surrounding countryside about 48% / 52% masked up.

    It is as if many are crying out for a governance of any calibre be it dangerously domineering or what, as in via covid incarceration can in time become enjoyable, part of the NORM, this can only be achieved by keeping up the same voting pattern.

    Reset by way of herd manipulation is the way to go, currently ALL governing political paths lead to Bethlem.

    1. All were masked in our Morrisons yesterday afternoon – just one member of staff maskless and one other customer apart from me. People have been conditioned.

      1. 335793+ up ticks,
        Morning N,
        They must believe it meats requirements to “prolong active life”
        The lab/lib/con current members definitely are in urgent need of BOB Martining

  38. Parliament is going to debate the petition you signed – “Stop work on HS2 immediately and hold a new vote to repeal the legislation”.

    https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/563380

    The debate is scheduled for 13 September 2021.

    Once the debate has happened, we’ll email you a video and transcript.
    Thanks,
    The Petitions team
    UK Government and Parliament

    With a bit of luck, the contractors will have made such good progress by then that the HoC will dismiss the proposal within a few minutes.

  39. Parliament is going to debate the petition you signed – “Stop work on HS2 immediately and hold a new vote to repeal the legislation”.

    https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/563380

    The debate is scheduled for 13 September 2021.

    Once the debate has happened, we’ll email you a video and transcript.
    Thanks,
    The Petitions team
    UK Government and Parliament

    With a bit of luck, the contractors will have made such good progress by then that the HoC will dismiss the proposal within a few minutes.

    3. I think his wife should place a pillow over his face while he is sleeping and hit him with a heavy bottomed frying pan. The pillow is to protect the pan.

    2. Typical French Bluster Won’t talk about 1951 UN Charter on Refugees but keeps quoting a Geneva Convention without date or Convention Number.

      Seems very proud to claim that they stop 50% but that’s a job only half done – and I don’t believe their 50% anyway.

      No explanation of Gendarmerie RIB or French Naval Escorts.

  43. Done!!
    The last ten bags Split & Shifted.

    Now ready for a cold bath followed by breakfast and a mug of tea!!

    1. Are you still drinking tea in girly pints?

      I invariably have two mugs at a time: together they hold a pint-and-a-half. 👍🏻😉

  44. The Daily Human Stupidity.

    “Deliberate avoidance of common sense has no cure.”

    Aniekee Tochukwu Ezekiel.

      1. 335793+ up ticks,
        Afternoon Anne,
        A multitude in the United Kingdom for the sake of their ino parties salves their consciences by going into deep three monkey mode, lab with anthony charlie lynton AKA the bog man,the wretch cameron, his approach to animal husbandry via a pigs head.
        Not leaving out the old political tart, treachery wore stilettos
        mayday who does really deserve quartering.

        Now we suffer with a farage influencing input the turkish delight, amnesties R me, pillow whispering puppet johnson.

        I find in the main a very high percentage of the electorate are of two persuasions, they either have a great hatred of these Isles as shown by their voting pattern or are criminally insane.

  46. ‘Morning, all. Just been catching up on the news over the last few days and I see that Dawn Butler has been ‘ejected’ from the HoC for accusing Johnson of consistently lying to Parliament.

    Now, I’ve absolutely no time whatsoever for Ms. Butler – she’s a Marxist race-grifter and herself a liar – but she’s not wrong on this. So why was she suspended for saying what anybody who has observed the blustering Johnson’s twisting and turning in the HoC, both on Brexit and on the the Covid-19 issue, knows to be factually correct? It’s high time this tradition of not accusing MP’s of lying was abolished. It dates back to the time when the Commons was a ‘gentleman’s club’, in which it was considered damn’ bad form for one ‘gentleman’ to accuse another of lying, but this custom is now exploited by serial liars like Johnson and Mrs. May before him to get away with telling blatant untruths to Parliament and thus to the British electorate.

    Under Parliamentary Privilege, MPs can traduce and libel members of the public at will, safe in the knowledge that as long as it’s done in the House, there will be no legal consequences. Yet they’re apparently free to lie to that same public with impunity and may not be taken to task for their lies.

    2. Up to a point but it would become an even uglier place if they were all allowed to let rip, although the possibility of the likes of the rabid Barry Sheerman being carted off on a one-way trip to the medical room after another red-faced, hate-filled outburst is an argument in its favour.

      Specifically, Butler began by claiming it was a lie to assert, as Johnson did, that vaccination had broken the link between infection and death. That’s a reasonably valid conclusion but even if you disagree with it, it cannot be a lie.

    3. Had exactly the same argument with someone yesterday. Slander, untrue accusations etc, should have no place in the H of C but the truth should. And if Johnson is a liar, which he is, no member should be told to remove themselves from the chamber for articulating the truth. To my mind it is dishonest.

      1. I think it would be hard to find anyone in the country who believes that Johnson always tells the truth!

        1. “I think it would be hard to find anyone in the country who believes that Johnson always ever tells the truth” might be more accurate 🙂

    4. At the time it was a gentleman’s club, one gentlemen could demand satisfaction via a duel. Let’s bring back duelling.

      The savages would of course now be at an advantage.

      2. That’s why there are lines down the middle of the House of Commons – to keep MPs a sword’s length apart.

        1. Indeed. Although I believe it’s two swords’ length, not that swords had a standardised length!

    5. But, Duncan, they are not lies, just terminological inexactitudes. ©Winston S Churchill.

  47. The Zero Covid dream has been crushed, so why are we still indulging its extremists?

    Australia has shown the folly of obsessing over case numbers, yet Britain hasn’t learned anything either

    CAMILLA TOMINEY, ASSOCIATE EDITOR

    The zero Covid project has collapsed, so why are we still indulging the elimination extremists?

    Cast your eyes over to Australia, where this “model” for controlling the pandemic is stuck in a lunatic cycle of self-harm. The state of South Australia has just gone into another lockdown following just five positive Covid “cases” – even though it is unclear if any of the patients are actually ill, let alone at serious risk of dying.

    People have been told to stay at home with schools, shops and everything else shut. All because of a handful of positive test results.

    Explaining the method behind the madness, Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said: “The virus doesn’t have legs: it moves around when people move around, so if people stay put we will be able to get on top of it.” Yes, let’s all stay put, indefinitely, shall we? Throw another virologist on the barbie, cobber!

    Due to a suspected outbreak of the Delta variant, half of Australia’s population, around 13 million people, are now in some form of lockdown despite pursuing a policy of splendid isolation involving closed borders and quarantine hotels. Having halved its cap on international arrivals to 3,000 per week, there are now 34,000 Australians stranded in a foreign country and unable to come home.

    Over in New Zealand, the mood is similarly masochistic thanks to Jacinda Ardern having done her level best throughout the pandemic to prove that quote about New Zealand being closed.

    The Left-wing Prime Minister has been praised by big statists for pursuing a Covid elimination strategy from the start – seemingly oblivious to the fact that she still hasn’t eliminated Covid, 17 months on. While the nation should of course be congratulated for having recorded just 26 Covid deaths, even with travel to New Zealand having effectively been banned since March 2020, there are still infections because viruses neither tend to have passports nor fill out passenger locator forms.

    Ms Ardern “performed a little dance” when New Zealand was Covid free on June 8, 2020 but now she is busily telling the Australians to foxtrot oscar with their joint quarantine-free travel bubble. So much for everybody needing good neighbours.

    Such is the collective hysteria of the Antipodean powers-that-be that Australia and New Zealand have already pulled out of the Rugby League World Cup because of concerns about the spread of the coronavirus – even though it is not taking place in the UK until October.

    How refreshing it was to hear Simon Johnson, chair of the host’s governing body, respond so candidly in describing the decision by the top two teams in the world as “selfish, parochial and cowardly”. It is certainly an odd move when you consider that both countries have sent athletes to Tokyo despite it dealing with 100 Covid cases linked to the Olympics as opposed to hypothetical infections that have not yet been spread.

    The whole farago provides a perfect case study in why an obsession with driving down case numbers is disproportionate and wrong. It might have been a sound policy at the beginning of the pandemic – but not at the end of it.

    Yet we are not immune from the nutbaggery up here in the northern hemisphere either. Take a look at our pingdemic, born out of scaremongering graphs which seemingly fail to take any account of the effectiveness of our vaccination roll out which, incidentally, is far superior to Australia’s and New Zealand’s. (The former has fully jabbed around 12 per cent of the population while the latter has only managed about 15 per cent so perhaps it is no wonder they are being so over cautious).

    The UK Government’s system for “releasing” workers from our current state of lockdown limbo is a bureaucratic mess. As the United Pingdom remains paralysed, with 1 million healthy people having been told to self-isolate, ministers are refusing to bring forward the August 16 plan for exempting the double jabbed. Employers are instead being asked to carry out even more testing on staff – with sites being set up at 500 factories, warehouses and distribution centres so critical workers no longer need to isolate if they are pinged by the NHS Covid app.

    But this does not constitute anything resembling a normal return to work. Instead it is a system of stealth restrictions, designed to keep the general public living in fear of coronavirus rather than learning to live with it.

    I thought the whole point of the vaccine was that it meant we didn’t have to worry about Covid cases in themselves – just protect the most vulnerable from dying from it, which we have done.

    Nearly 70 per cent of over-18s in the UK are now fully vaccinated. I appreciate there are concerns about lower take-up among 18-34-year olds, but as they are at much smaller risk of being hospitalised and dying from the disease (and are being actively encouraged to achieve herd immunity in nightclubs), why are we still mass testing more than anyone else in Europe?

    The roll-out should have enabled us to loosen up and yet the Department of Health continues to double down, seemingly oblivious to the enormous economic, social and psychological cost to the country.

    Meanwhile, children face the prospect of returning to school in September, but only after chimney-sweeping their little noses. While preferable to some of the Zero Covid zealots’ suggestion that they should be anally swabbed (look it up – some of these scientists also signed The Lancet letter calling freedom day “immoral and dangerous”), why do we need to test children daily when the vast majority of teachers, parents and grandparents have been double jabbed – or will be by the start of next term?

    Testing may be useful for tracking new variants, but the continued fixation on case numbers – or rather positive test results – is also feeding paranoia and holding us back. It is time to start trusting the vaccine for the medical miracle it is, rather than continuing this insanely self-destructive search for a zero Covid unicorn.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/23/zero-covid-dream-has-crushed-still-indulging-extremists/

    BTL:
    Robert Alan Sutton 23 Jul 2021 6:23PM
    I suspect for the Aussies the love of being locked up may be genetic.

  49. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d2bdc63c3d8e6ee499aadb5bad9bf14b6ae3b7922b1c5071affe5fd9c3f3d544.jpg Just to wind up Tom, I’m making a large batch of Yorkshire Ambrosia (mushy peas) today.

    I’ve half filled my huge 10 litre stockpot with dried yellow peas that I soaked overnight in boiling water and bicarbonate of soda. This morning I drained them, rinsed them out, then placed them in the stockpot with about 5 litres of clean cold water. Unfortunately, here in Sweden I cannot buy dried green peas so I have to make do with the yellow variety, Not to worry, a dash of green food colouring will make amends.

    I’ll report anon when the delicacy is made.

      1. Whenever I ask for dried green peas in the shops I invariably get a puzzled look.

          3. Don’t be a Silly Sausage, Hertslass. The Amazon flows through Brazil not Sweden.

            :-))

          4. I can get them on many internet sites but, since Brexit (despite Brexit?) I pay a hefty import duty.

        2. Asian food shop? Here, they have everything edible that has flavour, and a bewildering choice, too.

          1. I go to three Asian (Chinese/Thai) food shops in Malmö but I’ve not seen any dried green peas in any of them yet.

    2. ………………………………………… If all the world
      Should in a pet of temp’rance, feed on pulse,
      Drink the clear stream, and nothing wear but frieze,
      Th’ All-giver would be unthank’d, would be unprais’d.

      [John Milton]

    5. I had to do the same in Germany. This is their natural state and we dye them green in England or so I am told..

      1. As you all must know Mushy Peas were invented in Lancashire and then refined in Norfolk.

          1. You love to pull them down, Tom lad, but I bet you eat and enjoy pea soup, which is made to the same recipe.

          2. Another disgusting dish, served up by the Swedes on Thursdays as a hangover from their (neutral) military days with ham. George, I too have spent enough time in Sweden and been married to one for over 13 years, to understand their little (large) foibles.

        2. Nearly right, John. They were first brought over by the Vikings, where ärtsoppa (pea soup) is still made the same way as our mushy peas. A Norwegian friend told me that.

    6. From Wiki.

      Most commercially produced mushy peas contain artificial colourants to make them green—without these the dish would be murky grey.[4]
      Traditionally the controversial colourant tartrazine (E102) had been used as one of the colourants; however, as recently as 2019 major manufacturers were using a combination of Brilliant Blue FCF (E133) and riboflavin (E101).[5]

      2. Auntie Agnes R.I.P. used to boil cabbage etc.. to mush and then add soda bic to make them green again.

        1. They did the same at my primary school. We had to run the gauntlet of the vile sulphuric stench every day en route to school!

  50. UK weather: lightning strikes homes in Hampshire as country hit by storms. 24 July 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f41430f3f775b57ae312d7dd41c0f07724de7cc95a203abb5b709f8e14a40abe.jpg

    A 70-year-old woman has escaped unharmed after two homes were partially destroyed by a lightning strike in Hampshire, with thunderstorms and heavy rain expected across the south of the UK this weekend.

    It’s pretty obvious with everything that is happening that we are now in the End Times and the Apocalypse is upon us!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/24/uk-weather-lightning-strikes-homes-in-hampshire-as-country-hit-by-storms

      1. I was 25 miles away in Alton. I think i heard the lightning strike. It was very loud.

      1. Climate change!

        The severity of the fires in western Canada is being blamed on climate change, it is just a few brave souls mentioning the lack of controlled burns that would have kept the undergrowth manageable.

        It is a pity that Trump but not Obama mentioned this a few years ago, they might have listened to Obama and donesomething about it.

        1. Exactly the same as the bush-fires in Australia and the heath fires here in the UK. They think it’s ‘green’ to leave land (mis) managed and rather than blame themselves, “Oh, it MUST be climate change; that ‘thing’ we have been warning you all about.”

          1. Afternoon Nan. The Abo’s (prior to the white’s arrival) used to burn off the scrub deliberately to extend the grassland and thus feed the Roo’s!

          2. Nature arranges burns by application of lightning. It’s just people put them out, the vegetation grows some more, it happens again, until you can’t put it out.

          3. Not if, by understanding the natural events, you cut and maintain sufficiently wide fire-breaks to stop the unchallenged burn.

          4. I saw pictures of the Aussie fires. The men who would have cut the firebreaks before the conflagration had been denied access routes. In the name of ‘rewilding’. Their warnings went unheard.

          7. Thanks, BB2, I’d thought of that, particularly the Somerset Levels but I had to stay on (fiery) topic.

        2. Cape Town has just had its coldest reported spell of weather ever recorded.

          Yet more climate change.

        3. The same was said of the Australian bush fires a few years ago, it appears the tree huggers don’t like controlled burns so the fuel store was overflowing.

    4. We had a storm here last night. It woke up junior with the lightning flash.

      So… we went outside and talked about how light travels faster than sound, what thunder was and how lightning worked.

      While early in the morning, it was quite nice to sit there: junior, troll and beast.

  51. The wedding yesterday was a great success. Lots of laughs. They were very lucky with the weather. The food was great and there was a free Bar.

    The bride was outclassed by a gorgeous blonde though. I had to take her back to my room eventually.

    Absolutely heaved it down overnight with very loud thunder and lightning, very very frightening. Dolly snoozed through it all. It was a very hot day and she was fagged out.

  53. ON THE LIGHTER SIDE . . .

    

    An old country farmer had a wife who nagged him unmercifully. From morning till night she was always complaining about something.
    The only time he got any relief was when he was out ploughing with his old mule. He tried to plough a lot. One day, when he was out ploughing, his wife brought him lunch in the field. He drove the old mule into the shade, sat down on a stump, and began to eat his lunch. Immediately, his wife began nagging him again.
    Complain, nag, complain, nag – it just went on and on. All of a sudden, the old mule lashed out with both hind feet, caught her smack in the back of the head. Killed her dead on the spot.
    At the funeral several days later, the minister noticed something rather odd. When a woman mourner would approach the old farmer, he would listen for a minute, then nod his head in agreement; but when a man mourner approached him, he would listen for a minute, then shake his head in disagreement.
    This was so consistent, the minister decided to ask the old farmer about it. So, after the funeral, the minister spoke to the old farmer, and asked him why he nodded his head and agreed with the women, but always shook his head and disagreed with all the men.
    The old farmer said, ‘Well, the women would come up and say something about how nice my wife looked, or how pretty her dress was, so I’d nod my head in agreement.’

    ‘And what about the men?’ the minister asked.

    ‘They wanted to know if the mule was for sale.’

    1. Thanks, Eddy, nicked for the Bumper Joke Book.

      …and to reciprocate (they can’t touch you for it, it’s legal between consenting adults):

      Sorry About Your Loss
      A man was leaving a 7-11 with his morning coffee when he noticed a most unusual funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery. A long black hearse was followed by a second hearse about 50 feet behind. Behind the second hearse was a solitary man walking a pit bull on a leash. Behind him were 200 men walking single file.
      The guy couldn’t stand the curiosity. He respectfully approached the man walking the dog and said, “Sir, I know now is a bad time to disturb you, but I’ve never seen a funeral like this. Whose funeral is it?”
      The man replied, “Well, that first hearse is for my wife.”
      “What happened to her?”
      The man replied, “My dog attacked and killed her.”
      He inquired further, “Well, who is in the second hearse?”
      The man answered, “My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my wife when the dog turned on her.”
      A poignant and thoughtful moment of silence passes between the two men.
      “Sir, could I borrow that dog?”
      “Get in line.”

  54. Just delivered all the MR’s offerings for the Annual Show. Only two people masked. Both under 40. Odd.

    Will report later – I told the MR NOT to expect to win again (yawns)…!

    1. Does the MR get the sulks and force you to prepare your own supper if she loses? Does she?? I bet she doesn’t – so stop that yawning and make yourself useful around the garden.

      1. I have been slaving – I pushed a wheelbarrow all the way to the village hall.

  55. Apropos that comment the other day with BPAPM being vaccinated THREE times in different venues – the view at Chateau Thomas is that he has never been jabbed. Carrion will regard vaccine as against nature and forbid it.

    Discuss.

    4. There do seem to be persistent rumours about saline solutions.

      1. I read someone on t’internet saying that someone they knew had been called back for another jab “because you got a saline solution”
      2. I discounted 1. as an internet rumour, until a friend of my daughter’s had the exact same experience, in another country. Went for the vaxx, got called back because it was apparently only a saline.
      3. That video of the pharmacist opening the vaxx pack and asking why the ingredients list was empty.
      4. That government minister talking about “the placebo” yesterday – what was that supposed to mean?

      It’s all very strange. La Quinta Columna said they would try to get hold of more samples to analyse, to see if they could prove these rumours true or not.

    5. He didn’t need the vaccination as he’d had the virus already and was “bursting with antibodies”.

    3. Depends what the huntsman used as a liquid for his pilss, oops, deliberate smelling error.

  57. Article in Spectator yesterday, by Matt Ridley

    “It is mystifying to me that organic food is still widely seen as healthier, more sustainable and, most absurdly, safer than non-organic food.

    Following the publication of part two of Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy last week, the organic movement was quick to suggest that organic food and farming offer a way to achieve the strategy’s vision. ‘The recommendations of the National Food Strategy offer genuine hope that by embracing agroecological and organic farming, and adopting a healthier and more sustainable diet, we can address the climate, nature and health crises,’ said Helen Browning, chief executive of the Soil Association, Britain’s most vocal organic lobbying organisation. Browning also highlighted the strategy’s recognition of the Soil Association’s ‘Food for Life’ programme — essentially a vehicle to promote greater procurement and use of organic food in schools and hospitals.

    The trouble is that scientific evidence indicates that the food safety risks of eating organic food are considerably greater than those of eating non-organic food. This is primarily because organic crop production relies on animal faeces as a fertiliser, an obvious vector for potentially lethal pathogens such as E.coli, but also because organic crops can be prone to harmful mycotoxins as a result of inadequate control of crop pests and diseases.

    In his 2019 book The Myths About Nutrition Science, food and nutrition adviser David Lightsey cites an analysis of US Food and Drug Administration food safety recall data by Academics Review — a group of scientists dedicated to challenging anti-science claims — which showed that ‘organic foods are four to eight times more likely to be recalled than conventional foods for safety issues like bacterial contamination’.

    Sadly the recall system is not always 100 per cent effective in protecting human health. In 2011, a major food poisoning outbreak in Europe which affected nearly 4,000 people, killing 53, was ultimately traced to organically grown bean sprouts from a farm in Germany that had been contaminated by a virulent E.coli strain, O104:H4.

    Browning’s own organic meat company is currently at the centre of a listeria outbreak, with its organic corned beef being recalled just as Browning is publicly championing organic food as a healthier, more sustainable option. The Food Standards Agency notes that symptoms caused by listeria monocytogenes can be similar to flu and include high temperature, muscle ache or pain, chills, feeling or being sick, and diarrhoea. In rare cases, infections can be more severe, causing serious complications such as meningitis.

    On the issue of sustainability, there are serious questions about whether a scaling-up of organic agriculture — Browning has called for Britain to exceed the EU’s Farm to Fork target of 25 per cent organic agriculture — would genuinely deliver environmental benefits.

    Independent research published in Nature has shown that if England and Wales switched 100 per cent to organic it would actually increase the greenhouse gas emissions associated with our food supply because of the greater need for imports. Scaling up organic agriculture might also put at risk the movement’s core values in terms of promoting local, fresh produce and small family farms.

    Browning was at the centre of reports earlier this year that her firm Helen Browning’s Organic had switched to procurement of organic pork from Denmark, sent to its processing factory in Germany before onward dispatch to UK supermarkets. To me, that sounds more like an industrial, multinational food business than ‘supporting British farmers’ as the company’s website claims.

    To his credit, Dimbleby does not appear to have entirely fallen for the organic lobby’s rhetoric. His creative vision of a three compartment model for land use — allowing room for a combination of natural habitat, low-intensity farming and high-yield, hi-tech farming — follows the science and, if properly implemented, could deliver a more sustainable balance in terms of food production, resource use and environmental impact.

    The strategy also notes that many households would not be able to afford to feed themselves at organic prices, with the premium for organic produce ranging from 11 per cent (for organic milk) to more than 400 per cent (for organic chicken).

    Quite rightly, Dimbleby recognises that sustainably produced food in the future must look to innovation and new technologies — robots, drones, improved genetics and AI — to produce carbon-neutral and non-polluting food crops. And I remain hopeful as we chart our recovery from the Covid pandemic (a recovery made possible by the modern genetic technologies shunned and campaigned against by the organic lobby) that a more evidence-based approach to building a better food future will prevail.

    Surveying the problems of traditional farming in his native India, a friend of mine, Professor Channa Prakash, once remarked: ‘Sure, organic agriculture is sustainable: it sustains poverty and malnutrition.’

    I believe in freedom of choice, and I will defend an individual’s right to choose organic, but when it comes to protecting the health of the youngest and most vulnerable members of society — in our schools and hospitals — the demonstrable health risks of organic food outweigh any perceived sustainability benefits.”

    1. I remember the Bean Sprout Saga; 10 years ago!!!
      I’m afraid whenever I read about the real right-on organic food production, it reminds me of the old joke.
      A “We put horse manure on our rhubarb.”
      B “We prefer custard.”

      1. I fell in love with beansprouts over 50 years ago at the six-bob, three-course Chinky lunch.

    1. Hope the mandolin (is it?) player is OK – looks somewhat anorexic to me, especially her legs.

  60. Nice herb garden – pretentious gallery that occasionally has some interesting stuff [The eurotrash luvvie owner is ‘not quite all that he seems/wants to be’ according to my sniffy art dealer Bavarian cousin-in-law] More importantly, a couple of good photographs for a relaxing Saturday afternoon. I used to live in Bruton but it went rapidly downhill after I left and it’s now Notting Hill West with nouveau oiks such as Gideon Osborne paying ridiculous prices for mediocre houses

    How a Somerset farm became a hub for modern art
    23 July 2021, 5:54am From Spectator Life

    https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf04078f3cf7a9c30/bltd15c5d5c7ae27b45/60f9faede0115e5a01a05705/hauser_and_wirth2.jpg?format=jpg&width=1920&height=1080&fit=crop

    I’m standing in a farmyard in Somerset, drinking in the clear country air, soaking up the summer sunshine and marvelling at the lovely view. However this view is rather different from the sort of thing you tend to see on most farms. I’m here to see some modern art, stuff my face and enjoy a stroll round the stunning gardens. Welcome to Durslade Farm, the grooviest art gallery in the West Country, and one of my favourite days out.

    Durslade is the brainchild of Swiss couple Iwan and Manuela Wirth. Together with Manuela’s mother, leading art collector Ursula Hauser, they run one of the world’s hippest galleries, Hauser & Wirth. Hauser & Wirth have premises all around the world, in swanky locations like Monaco, St Moritz, Zurich, Hong Kong, New York and LA. So why Somerset? Well, it all started when Iwan and Manuela moved here from London, to create a better lifestyle for their children (as Manuela observed, there is magic in this landscape) and found a rundown farm that had been disused since the 1980s. They bought it and set about transforming it into a new kind of gallery.

    Hauser & Wirth Somerset opened seven years ago, in July 2014. Right from the start, it felt like a novel experience. These tastefully converted farm buildings showcase some of the biggest names in contemporary art, and it won’t cost you a penny to see them. Admission is free. However the art is only half the story. There’s also a stylish restaurant, a lively bar and those gorgeous landscaped grounds. It’s not just a gallery, it’s a Gesamtkunstwerk – a total, integrated work of art that satisfies all the senses.

    https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf04078f3cf7a9c30/blt1627bd725f57c4af/60f9faceda6f75588bd914a9/hauser_and_wirth_3.jpg?format=jpg&width=1440

    ‘We knew that in Somerset we had found a very special place where we could bring all of our interests together,’ said Iwan. ‘Art, architecture, landscape conservation, gardening, food, education, community and family.’ ‘But who’s going to come?’ wondered Manuela, before they opened. You can see her point. They’d spent several years converting the site, a massive undertaking, and though the setting is idyllic, it does feel rather off the beaten track. Bruton is just down the road, but it only has a few thousand inhabitants. Frome and Yeovil, the nearest big towns, are both a good drive away.

    She needn’t have worried. Turns out Durslade’s secluded location was all part of the appeal. People come from miles around: 130,000 people in the first year alone. If you want to stay over there’s a smart guesthouse on site, lavishly decorated with original works of art. I’ve been here several times and each time I come the place is busy. For some visitors, the artworks are the main attraction. For others, it’s the gardens. Some folk just come for lunch. For me, it’s the mix of all three that makes coming here so special. Durslade has become a rendezvous, somewhere to meet up and hang out.

    Over the past seven years, Hauser & Wirth have shown a wide range of artists, everyone from Elisabeth Frink to Phyllida Barlow (they’ve shown Don McCullin’s photographs, too). If you’re not a big fan of abstract or avant-garde art, you might find some of these shows a bit annoying, but the great thing about this set-up is that you can take it or leave it. You might discover something new, something you really like, but if it’s not your cup of tea you can go outside and stretch your legs or grab a bite to eat. The food is all seasonal, locally sourced, and full of flavour. The restaurant is relaxed and informal. There are DJs and bands in the bar on Friday nights.

    Stars like Martin Creed and Mark Wallinger have been to live and work here, as artists in residence. ‘The change in pace and scene was very welcome,’ said Wallinger. ‘Only with this distance from urban habits does your time become your own.’

    The main show this summer is a serene and meditative survey of the art of Eduardo Chillida, the great Basque sculptor whose timeless, elemental works feel like ancient relics from a forgotten age. I went down to Somerset for the press view and the sculptor’s grandson, Mikel Chillida was there to show us round. ‘My grandfather used to say that in all the arts there are two essential ingredients – construction and poetry,’ said Mikel, as he walked us through the exhibition. He was talking about the way his grandfather went about his business, the combination of practical and lyrical elements in his sculpture, but he might just as well have been talking about Durslade Farm.

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

    Richard robertsonjames • 16 hours ago
    The main attraction of the ‘farm’ is the landscaping in the photograph by Piet Oudolf. I’m surprised he doesn’t get a mention. The art is the butt of many local jokes and rightly so as a previous poster seems to agree. The restaurant looks great but is style over substance too. The whole place however is an interesting and attractive venue.

    The mystery is the attraction of Bruton. We have friends there so have been a few times and just don’t get it. It probably is because of the many good schools there. Of course the latest attraction is GO and on our post lunch walk we insisted on having George’s house pointed out to us and then suitably thrilled when later our dog sniffed his dog’s bottom and vice versa under the watchful eye of Matthew Parris who was obviously visiting his old chum that weekend. But it won’t make us want to move there

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-a-somerset-farm-became-a-hub-for-modern-art

      1. Either a storage system for something agricultural and stinky, or else it’s Art. Hard to say which, at this distance.

  61. One bugbear I have is with the current crop of website designers, who seem hell-bent on making my life as difficult as they can get away with. Perhaps it’s to teach me a lesson.

    I have trouble with short-term memory, and like as much on one screen as possible. The moment I have to turn the page or scroll down, I forget what was there before. My eyesight is good, so small type does not bother me, as long as the paragraphing is sensible. When I was at college, I tried to get an entire lecture’s notes onto two sheets of A4, by writing very small and condensing ideas, so that trigger words could bring up everything that was said of note. Style was far less important than information.

    On the screen of my laptop, which is a bit smaller than the size of an A4 sheet of paper (11″ x 7″), from top to bottom, the first inch contains the main menu and systems info, the heading and the tabs.

    On the Disqus homepage, nearly two inches of screen space is taken up with a plain blue band containing just ‘DISQUS” and Home, Notifications buttons and buttons for Home Page and Settings. That’s all. In the past that would take up one line of banner space. There is a large circle nearly 2 inches in diameter for an avatar with my name (as if I had forgotten) in large type, a count of comments, upvotes, followers and following in large type, more white space, a large blue button “Edit Profile”, and a Frequented Communities menu, with just enough space for one item before having to scroll down. This uses up 2 1/2 inches of the left of the screen.

    Of the 11″ x 7″ screen, that leaves 8″ x 2 1/2″ for reading material. With all the white space and the stylish large heavy type for the heading, there is only room for one item. Before I could have looked at twenty before having to scroll down.

    Other websites are even worse. I cannot use any email app after Outlook Express or pre-iOS Apple Mail. That ex-Blairite appointee James Purnell trashed the BBC Home Page, Yahoo! was ruined a decade ago, and don’t get me started on Facebook, which is quite unusable now.

    1. So many modern websites have gone this way. They’re designed for mobiles and tablets with their small screens. On a conventional monitor, the icons, buttons and text expand to a size you would expect to find in infant school teaching material.

      Where once you could find the info you needed on a page, now it’s spread across any number.

      1. The most annoying thing, when using my phone for commenting here, is that any link to another site means when I come back here, I have to click the Disqus D again to log in again.
        I did get thrown off Disqus the other day, for no apparent reason, using my laptop as usual, and had a job to get back in again. I never normally log out.

    2. Why do you need the Disqus home page? I never bother with that – just go from one day’s Nottl to the next.

      1. Happy Saturday Jules, last week, completely unannounced & 100% unnecessary Disqus redesigned the Home page layout to what is now an ugly eye sore of a home page which makes navigating harder !

  62. It’s very quiet today! I think the Borg must be having an Editorial Staff Meeting to decide the future course of events. While most of the professional anti-Russia shills have been laid off for a while now they’ve had some other setbacks more recently; the attempt to rerun the Steele Dossier in the Guardian last week died in its tracks and the Great Chinese Hack Story spluttered out after one day. Even 77 Brigade hasn’t been able to make much of a dent on the threads. It could be that scepticism is now so profound and widely spread that it is almost impossible for the propaganda to gain any real traction. What they need is another Great Scam! My guess is a False Flag operation in the South China Sea!

  64. Two Russian military aircraft have been sent to deliver food and personal protective equipment to Cuba, the Russian Defence Ministry said Saturday.

    “At Supreme Commander of the Russian Armed Forces Vladimir Putin’s request, military transport aircraft are delivering humanitarian aid to Cuba. Two An-124 Ruslan aircraft of the Russian Defence Ministry took off from the Chkalovsky airfield near Moscow to their destination. The aircraft will deliver food, personal protective equipment and more than 1 million medical masks to Cuba. More than 88 tonnes of cargo in total”, the ministry said.
    In July, Cuba was hit by a massive protest, largest since 1994, resulting in multiple casualties and arrests. With years of shortages of basic goods, including food, and an economic decline in the background, people were angered by the way the government handled the COVID-19 response and persecuted critics. Thousands took to streets to demand free elections and social order. In response, the government deployed security forces across the country and halted communications, including the internet.

    On Thursday, the United States imposed a new round of sanctions on Cuba, targeting the Cuban military and the interior ministry over the crackdown of the recent protests.

    1. I wouldn’t say he “destroyed” the Scots Nit chap. Nice put down, perhaps.

  67. The Yodel saga – part 426?

    Plus points – the CEO stand in has forwarded my complaint to the “Executive Complaints Department” who have been in touch and made comforting noises.
    Minus points – whoever plans the drivers’ routes [assuming they are planned, which I’m beginning to doubt] is a real moron. When I checked the tracker at about 1300, the driver with my parcels onboard was about 2.5 miles from our house, but on delivery 29 of 96 – ours is delivery 89 or 90! Since then he has been going in the wrong direction and is now on the other side of the main A6. As Derbyshire CC appear unable to repair the road that was damaged in floods over 18 months ago, he will now almost certainly have to retrace his steps to deliver to us; my feeling is that he will run out of time well before that happens! Oh, and his delivery rate has dropped drastically – I think he has a friend in Wirksworth – he spent a lot of yesterday there too!

    Update – the driver has been within 2 minutes driving time of our house at least twice today but still drove on in the wrong direction, presumably following a route devised by someone who failed map reading – I have lost complete faith in these morons, and will be telling Laithwaites on Monday that I expect them to sort it out – they keep using Yodel, despite all the problems!

  69. Ross Clarke in the Spekkie:

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/we-need-to-act-now-to-block-britain-s-social-credit-system

    We need to act now to block Britain’s social credit system

    Ross Clark

    I have to admit that I didn’t quite get it right when, 12 days ago, I wrote: ‘There is a model for what will be coming our way if we do not resist vaccination passports and electronic ID cards: China’s social credit system, which blacklists people for numerous antisocial offences, from crossing the street on a red light to failing to sort their recycling, and uses the information to deny them the right, for example, to buy rail and airline tickets.’

    I had in mind that it would take two to five years for a vaccination passport scheme to morph into a Chinese-style social credit system. In fact, it took two weeks. This morning it was reported that the government is planning to introduce a health app in January which will monitor our shopping, our exercise levels, or intake of fruit and vegetables – and reward us with virtue points which we can exchange for discounts, free tickets (to what kind of event is not clear) and other goodies. Capita and Serco – the usual beneficiaries of demented government schemes – are reported to be bidding for the chance to run it.

    Let’s leave aside the rather obvious possibilities for fraud: just think how many virtue points you could accumulate by persuading someone else to take your phone jogging with them while you tuck into takeaway pizza which you bought with means other than your smartphone – you could enjoy your junk food and get a free pass to the all-in wrestling to boot. Just because someone has bought some kind of drink or foodstuff doesn’t mean they are going to consume it – even teetotallers can stock up on wine and beer if they are throwing a party.

    But more to the point, do we seriously want to be monitored like piece of industrial plant? It won’t be long, of course, before employers started demanding that their employees used the app, and to see your diet and exercise history before giving you a job. Just as clubs, and quite possibly pubs and restaurants, will be obliged to check our vaccination status before letting us in, next they will find themselves forced to check our dietary history before selling us a burger and milkshake. And of course, the NHS will be expected to use the app for rationing healthcare. Don’t expect to be offered a hip operation until you have proved that you are leading a healthy lifestyle.

    There will be no end to this kind of thing if we agree to use this app. Just look how we were fooled with CCTV cameras. If we can be said to have consented to their use at all it was on the basis that they might be used to solve serious crime. Yet look at them now: programmed to issue fines systematically for the most minor of offences: straying into a bus lane for a few yards, getting caught in a box junction, accidentally dropping a few crumbs as you eat your lunch on a city centre bench. It is always the same with surveillance: give authorities an inch and mission creep sets in at once.

    There is only one way we can avoid vaccination passports and health apps from developing into nightmarish constant surveillance of our lives – and that is to reject them now. Don’t download any app the government is trying to push at you, boycott any venue whose entry is dependent on you supplying personal information on a smartphone. It is absolutely certain that if we do consent to these things, then sooner rather than later, we will end up with a spy in our pockets ready to ‘ping’ us and admonish us should we fancy a doughnut.

        1. Keep your phone private and say no to any tracking apps or nosy websites that want to set up an advertising profile. Just say no to all cookies except the ones that make the site work.

          1. I don’t do Apps in any shape or form, they are a complete mystery to me and shall ever more remain so.

          2. I already clear ALL cookies and trackers and all other junk, every time I close down and, like tonight, wish you all Goodnight, God bless and sweet dreams – that came up as ‘drams’ before correction but I might just take a wee dram before signing off. ‘Hic’

        2. The Blacks & the Muslims in the UK have no moral qualms about acquiring illegal firearms & explosives etc & using them for criminal & terrorist purposes and the UK authorities by & large turn a blind eye to it and hand out very lenient sentences to the few they convict of such offences yet will pursue relentlessly those White folk who post a few Tweets that are not politically or gender bender correct or commit the heinous crime of using the wrong recycling bin !

        1. Its a toss up between the army of Allah going over to the stage of armed revolt once they are 20% of the population or the Chinese starting WW3 in the Pacific

        1. Not me Tovarisch, no home spy devices in my household & I constantly monitor the electric toaster to see if it & the fridge are talking about the washing machine !

          2. Yes and to say nothing about what the Hoover picks up whilst sweeping the carpets for bugs and is remotely communicating with the TV’s remote control who has been in contact with next doors dishy satellite dish .

        1. I went with a large group of mates for the rugby on TV in a pub this afternoon. A post wedding party (not a mask in sight including the staff). All the people i saw coming in were youngish men all wearing masks.

          The Landlady had to explain to them that they were not now needed. It didn’t help much given she was coughing after having a fag break.

          What surprises me is that young men (20 to 30) are so impressionable.
          I blame the Parents !

          I can also see many business opportunities….but enough about that !

          1. I went to the table tennis club this morning and we were allowed to have more tables in the space we hire – so up from four tables to seven today – and nobody bothered with the obsessive hand sanitising and ball cleaning that was imposed on us for the last few months.
            I didn’t see anyone in a mask and nobody bothered wiping the tables down each time we changed ends or partners.

          2. Oooh, Jules are coming round to clean my balls before we ping-pong – or whatever?

        2. …and for the same reasons, why did we either uninstall it or refuse to install it?

          Come on people (sheeple?) now is the time to recognise and rise up against this stupid, self-serving government of the slave-masters before it’s too late.

  70. Curfew imposed in Afghanistan to curb Taliban offensive. 24 July 2021.

    The widespread Taliban offensive has seen the insurgents capture key border crossings, dozens of districts and encircle several provincial capitals since early May.

    “To curb violence and limit the Taliban movements, a night curfew has been imposed in 31 provinces across the country,” except in Kabul, Panjshir and Nangarhar, the interior ministry said in a statement.

    The Taleban are obeying a Government instruction for a curfew? Why don’t they just issue a Cease Fire and tell them all to go home?

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/24/curfew-imposed-in-afghanistan-to-curb-taliban-offensive

    1. The UK Border Farce will soon be issuing a tender for more Afghan speaking interpreters & erecting more Mosques inside Hotel Lobbies to accommodate the expected influx of newly “Liberated ” Afghanis fleeing from the chaos that Blair & Bush started & Biden has now aggravated !

      1. The illegal gimmigrants arriving in boats are Africans, probably eritrea, Sudanese, Lebanese, Saudis, Turks. The very people we really, really do not want.

        2. Hello Mr. Wibbling, Hippie Saturday, did you not pick up on the nuance of my post ” will soon be issuing ” it was a sarcastic jibe at the very real near future possibility of pro-Western Afghans fleeing the sadistic cruelty of the murderous fanatical Talibans and taking a route through either Pakistan or other countries bordering Afghanistan to reach the safety of the West & the UK in particular. These will be genuine refugees fleeing death & slavery in part caused by the UK & USA supporting the drug smuggling gangs that are the major constituent part of the so-called pro-Western puppet regime in Kabul. Unlike the Scumbags you detailed who are coming to the UK to suck the blood out of the UK Taxpayer’s generous welfare benefit Scams & prepare the UK for eventual absorption into the Caliphate of the West, the Afghanis who are now facing death or slavery at the hands of the Taliban had not until now fled in large numbers to the West & were content to live in their 3rd world dump as long as Uncle Sam & John Bull stood guard over the Opium crops, built schools, clinics, water wells & provided food for them & their flocks, but this thanks to Uncle Joe the Senile child sniffer is about to end!

    3. As is usually the case…the *curfew is not to deter the talban but to try to limit the deaths from the citizens who believe the nonsense sent out by their government.

      Sounds very familiar.

  71. ££5793+ up ticks,
    End game must surely be close as the sh!te campaign has been building openly these last three decades.
    The indigenous peoples MUST mount a united anti treacherous, political sh!te campaign STOP feeding the anti United Kingdom political @rseholes via the polling booth at ANY given opportunity.

    Well meant advice to ALL lab/lib/con current member / voters, for once think of your kids future and vote accordingly if you want more of the same then continue until the imam orders you to stop.

    https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1418943160047312905

      1. 335793+ up ticks,
        Evening E&F,
        3D printers in public libraries knocking out longbows there’s
        plenty of wanna be Robin Hoods only too ready.

  72. Scared out of their wits by the Covid paranoia, Britons long to repent, submit and be controlled. Janet Daley. 24 July 2021.

    Is this the end of the world? Every time I turn on the television news I am confronted by an apocalyptic panorama of fire, flood and never-ending plague. Great burning conflagrations in Oregon, catastrophic floods in Germany, and further restrictions at home to suppress a disease for which there is now a quiverful of effective vaccines. A pandemic described as “unprecedented” – although it is not, only the official response to it is – coincides with an equally unprecedented threat to “the planet” which is bizarrely depicted as if it were a living quasi-sentient being which could be killed (“destroyed”) by our wicked behaviour. Normal life, in the pre-pandemic or pre-climate crisis form we had come to expect in the modern world, can never be restored: to demand or expect such a thing is unforgivable.

    This relentless doom narrative chronicles events which are, obviously, genuine occurrences, but there is a prevailing note, a recurrent End of Days tone to this catalogue of nightmares that seems to link them together in a quite superstitious way. Vivid accounts of climate change and of the Covid pandemic come to seem like two aspects of the same jeremiad: this terrible fate is all our own fault. Our vanity and arrogant belief in the limitlessness of human progress have destroyed all the achievements we thought were invincible.

    There is something primeval about the appeal of this sort of message – an updated, technological version of the most basic human fable. We have angered the gods with our presumptions of personal freedom and mass affluence. Now we are being punished. Any possible remedy must be preceded by self-flagellation and an avowed return to humility: an acceptance of our sin against nature in a new secular pantheism. You can hear this refrain quite explicitly in the extreme forms of climate change protest: there has been too much greed, too much selfishness, even though this is by far the most socially conscientious era in world history. If anything, it is the politically generous impulse to spread prosperity and individual liberty to the great mass of the world’s population that has produced the climate changes that are causing such alarm. (Of course, the Leftist infiltration of the climate lobby depicts this spreading of wealth as simply rapacious capitalism seeking to enlarge its market – which is another version of original sin.)

    Oddly, there is almost no corresponding argument being made that the impact of Covid, for example, could be directly related to our political compassion: so determined have modern democracies been to extend life expectancy that we have produced a vast increase in the elderly population. Had there been as few people living into their 80s and 90s as was commonly the case in earlier times, before democratically accountable government, Covid might scarcely have registered on the scale of civic disasters. Roughly a third of all the Covid deaths in England occurred in care homes, it is said. The great growth in the numbers of these care facilities came as a consequence of the need to provide accommodation for the exponential explosion in the elderly population which was a direct result of improvements in healthcare fostered and paid for by the state acting on behalf of the society. So maybe it was the good intentions of populations and their governments that paved the way to this hell. The very opposite of greed and selfishness. It’s a thought that I have never heard mooted in any broadcast account.

    As a journalist, I am obliged to watch the television news coverage. But I have lost count of the number of people who have told me that they have stopped watching it because it has become unbearable. This is not presumably the effect that the broadcasters would have wanted but given their apparently deliberate intention to create great anxiety, irremediable depression and overwhelming guilt in roughly that order, it is hardly a surprising development. The images on the screen, orchestrated into tendentious packages and moral testaments, are designed to induce, paradoxically, both terror at our own helplessness and resolve to take remedial action. Even if these accounts are justifiable in their basic claims, the way they are being presented is disturbing and alien to a public discourse which should – don’t we all assume this? – rely on persuasion rather than fear.

    On the face of it, this looks like another chapter in the modern struggle of totalitarianism versus liberty. But it is more than a constitutional argument between free political systems and despotism. Those of us who are determined to be free – and believe that this is a rational choice – must be aware that even in mature, stable democracies, there is a deep and probably inextinguishable longing to have one’s choices controlled and limited by authority, to be absolved from responsibility, to be protected from the consequences of individual actions. A successful public messaging campaign turned that ambivalence into a degree of compliance over Covid rules which has shocked many British commentators but what is most remarkable is how unsophisticated the basic appeal remains: how easy it is to persuade people that they have unleashed vengeful dark forces which must be appeased.

    This fear is at the heart of every form of neurotic anxiety and those who are prey to it as individuals (often the most intelligent and sensitive) can incorporate it into belief systems and public policies with the best of motives and little self-awareness: the urge to control others is as much a product of fear as the desire to be controlled. Put in political terms, an authoritarianism that presents itself as benign can be more invidious than a murderous tyranny because the case for overthrowing it seems so much less urgent and the pretext for maintaining it so apparently virtuous. What this version of it rules out is the possibility of constructive, reasonable discussion about how terrible consequences might be averted through innovation, discovery, experiment and cooperative effort – all the things that free people engage in when they are not scared out of their wits, or depressed beyond the point of reason.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/24/scared-wits-covid-paranoia-britons-long-repent-submit-controlled/

    2. Perfect , very pretty.

      Perhaps your grandaughter might consider using her artistic skill by painting a picture of that lovely photo.

      1. That’s a nice idea, Mags. We are seeing her tomorrow up Lunnon (first time in the flesh since November 2019) and I’ll run it past her.

        1. It really does look like a jigsaw puzzle! My grandfather used to make his own, from paintings by a friend of his!

        2. Bit trashy i know but you could or a member of the family could Capitalise on this. (yes…yes RA and what not …as if they won’t capitalise on it themselves).

          My point is…. a chum of mine made masks and sold them on Ebay to the Chavs. I asked her why and she said she had picked out a Burberry material and knew it would sell well (she does car boot sales and knows what sells !)

          New Kitchen paid for, Pergola paid for, house repainted. Just sayin’.

          Obviously we have higher standards than any politician but it’s market out there with money to burn.

      1. I had absolutely nothing to do with their cultivation – just watering them. And dead-heading.

    8. Congratulations to the MR, and to you for your unstinting support and good humour!

    9. Well done, Bill and the MR. I suspect that the MR deserves it more. Be sure to tell her, Bill.

    1. I signed up to register support and have been invited to an evening event at church on 3 Aug, with various speakers. I’ll report back.

  78. 6:08pm
    TRY COWAN-DICKIE! South Africa 12-10 British and Irish Lions
    Well, hello. The Lions maul roar. Lineout smooth, backs flooding in to join the power of the pack and the Lions drive over for the Test’s first try! Cowan-Dickie gets it down just about and the Lions cut the gap.

    1. PENALTY BIGGAR! South Africa 17-16 British and Irish Lions
      Easy as that. The gap’s a point and the more the Lions play in South Africa’s half, the Boks keep giving up penalties.

      1. PENALTY BIGGAR! South Africa 17-19 British and Irish Lions
        The Lions lead. This has been hugely impressive given the half-time deficit. Springboks can’t get field position or stop the Lions maul, and are losing out at the breakdown. Lions playing smarter.

        1. 70 mins – South Africa 17-19 British and Irish Lions
          Box kick from De Klerk, ball comes back the Lions’ way and then Hogg kicks very well upfield. Farrell with a bomb, Henshaw knocks on. Back for the scrum outside SA’s 22.

          Clock slowly ticking down as we enter the final 10 minutes…

          1. PENALTY FARRELL! South Africa 17-22 British and Irish Lions
            Farrell delivers, and that’s big, because the Boks need a try to draw level and potentially win. 90 seconds left from the restart.

          2. FULL-TIME: South Africa 17-22 British and Irish Lions
            Boks win the restart back! Massive play. On the attack inside the Lions’ 22.

            Kolisi nearly knocks on but does well, Boks going backwards. Will the Lions’ fitness levels shine through here. Boks shoved back to their own 10-metre line but discipline essential for the Lions.

            De Allende driven into the grass by Daly. Over 10 phases now for the world champions as the hooter sounds. Knocked on? No, it’s another Itoje turnover! Hogg puts it into touch and the Lions win the first Test!

  79. That’s me for this prize-winning day. Last night richardl posted about nit-picking judges at flower/veg shows when he was a lad. Well, we put in for the “five varieties of vegetable” class – but had a stiff note from the judges because two of them (totally different to look at) cavolo nero and curly kale – are BOTH kale – and thus there were only four.. Tut, tut…!!

    To London tomorrow – trains permitting – to meet beloved grand-daughter at the Royal Academy and see her prize-winning painting on display. Then lunch in a posh fish resto – then home. Pickles will be imprisoned in the house – Gus will be in the porch but able to go out through the cat-flap.

    So I’ll catch up on Monday. Have a good, peaceful Sunday think up the next cock-up by BPAPM and his useless gang.

    A lundi

    2. You should have told th esilly judges that if they wanted ‘varieties’ they should accept them.

      Have a lovely day in London!

    3. Enjoy the display, Bill!
      How fantastic to have a g-daughter with that level of skill!

    5. Good luck with all that, Bill and take our NoTTLer love to your talented Grand-daughter.

  80. Wouldn’t a covid passport – i.e. access to venues and areas forbidden without the vaccine and the app be fundamentally discriminatory? It’d be equivalent to demanding only the able bodied are allowed to function in society.

    What about those with Hepatitus? A cold? HIV? Vaginosis? I’m sorry, you’re socially unacceptable, you can’t enjoy the same things as others do. The discrimination is hideous.

    Covid is just an excuse to control the population. In these illiberal, backward, oppressive totalitarian times the state must be resisted and told no. It won’t understand that, so it must be prevented from such authoritarian abuses – using a noose.

    1. I’ve come round to that idea. With Smithfield and Tyburn unavailable, Trafalgar Square would make a good venue? Had that conversation today with a guy carrying a very large board with just two words written on it. “Hang Boris”. He meant it.

      1. Changing the government isn’t the problem. The state is the issue. The heads of the civil service, the state machine itself.

        1. Yep, let’s keep some piano-wire for them.

          Civil Service Union – be afraid, be VERY afraid. We’re coming for you.

      2. Good to know, Sue. Do you think, from those you met, are we ripe for revolution?

        1. Resistance certainly but as with the early Christians, what’s most striking about the people who turn up at theses events is the love they have for one another. They’ll guard their children though.

  81. No smart phone?, don’t want to use NHS COVID app?, want to go night clubbing with your grandchildren?

    Yes, it can be difficult for silver surfers without the latest kit which enables you get a time limited Q-code COVID pass:

    https://youtu.be/hBqgM1h5D10

    However you can get a COVID pass letter sent to your address that you registered with your GP.
    Just click the following link:

    https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/covid-pass/get-your-covid-pass-letter/

    and this will appear:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b2c7926121eb858a4c0092ae758df74acfb94343729a00ade982ad9f1eb7b57a.jpg

    I don’t know what the letter contains but I assume it has a Q-code pass with an expiry date (and quite likely some other encoded personal data)

    1. The next step if some businesses ignore these draconian abuses will be to shut them down. To simply prevent them from filing. Next it’ll be a requirement for hiring – all in the public good, of course.

      1. With nearly all pensioners, even with scientific degrees, now being able to get COVID passes they are immediately far more employable for jobs in the United Pingdom than the formerly far more employable qualified workforce.

        1. Almost certainly a good thing. Intelligent, free thinking, educated and experienced workers are urgently needed. The immature dross who take a day off if they have a headache certainly need a spine.

    2. I tried that – the code is supposed to be valid for 30 days – mine expired in 2 days! Another IT failure involving the NHS/Government!

  82. Well, there may https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c74a30a8c4da35ea9ba04a5c25e8d6c077f0e1eff7fa796a32162e249ce60bb.jpg not have been the millions in Hull that there were in London, but I had persuaded two separate mask-wearing, double-jabbed and terrified ladies to consider the ethics of vaccine passports before I got out of the car park.

    Walked way more than I intended, though; I have a nasty suspicion my injured knee is going to take its revenge tomorrow.

    1. Excellent outcome – hope the knee held up.
      Does it need a support bandage, or a bag of frozen peas?

      1. Frozen peas being quite difficult to sustain over a matter of hours, I went for the support bandage option. Leg still attached so far.

    6. Well done, that girl – Wow, you look good, there’s no Ashes and Dust thereabouts. KBO, Girl.

    2. With multiples of various pathogens everywhere it appears another string to pull now that most people have cottoned on to the pingdemic.

    3. And perhaps many other viral RTIs have novel ways of getting around that we don’t know about yet because there’s been no research on them.

    4. I have noticed that a mask cannot prevent the odour from a jam tart getting through

    5. That’s it, then.
      Wear a face nappy as an underpant, or get the offending orifice closed up by surgery.

    7. Well the virus is known to be present in patients with COVID.

      Here’s the conclusion of the paper cited below:

      In conclusion, our results suggest that SARS-CoV-2 RNA may be excreted in the urine depending on the severity of COVID-19. Although the period of viral shedding in the urine is relatively short, HCWs should also take infection prevention and control measures when handling urine, particularly samples from patients with moderate to severe COVID-19.

      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7266575/

      This however presents an exciting virology challenge to the scientists/schoolkids who can manufacture a COVID litmus test toilet paper – or if you must just shake it off, COVID indicator pants/panties.

  84. Bleedin’ ‘ell.
    Like the 101 dalmatians here.
    The husky farm are barking, then stop, and the dairy farm barks in response, then stops. Reply by the huskies… and so on.
    How do you get dogs to STFU? Otherwise, it’s a perfect, still evening.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5c2176723a9f8be76b9cd9b81983304cafc9e840430915de9e0ec27d628c2d2b.jpg
    And now the horrible buggers have started howling – and the echo from behind the house makes the hair rise, so it does. 🙁

      1. “QUIET” almost shouted in a very stern voice with eyes almost closed.

        That says, “I’m the Alpha (pack leader) and you do as you’re told.”

    2. As you are a cat person you wouldn’t understand.

      The dogs, even over a longish distance speak to each other.

      Just consider yourself lucky they haven’t worked out how to access Twitter.

      Once they do we are all dead.

      Well…did i say dogs? I meant cats. :@(

    4. Our little Dotty has a relationship with our next-door neighbours. They fostered her before we took her from Blue Cross and now, next door there is a particular brand of Dutch dog called Matilda and Dotty will rush down to the ‘Dotty-Gate’ and sit and bark until Matilda answers.

      Later this week we will take Matilda for a day while her ‘parents’ go to a wedding. It will be interesting to see the inter-action as Matilda is at least 5 times Dotty’s size.

  85. I’ve just watched a bit of the ‘limpics opening ceremony. Not very diverse – I didn’t see a single black, or for that matter, white face.

    Have the leftards mentioned anything about this?

    2. I thought the Olympics held here were fun. What with the history, Her Majesty, James Bond and such.

      Japan would probably need to do an extravaganza of torture and bamboo under the nails salons…probably why the the stadium was empty.

        1. I’ve been to the site of the filming of “Bridge on the River Kwai” and swum in the river.

    3. Is Japan Racist?

      You can understand the sensitive issues in Japan about non-conformity when an ad featuring mixed race actors was screened in the country.

      You can find the video by searching YouTube with the headline.

    4. Even under normal circumstances I studiously avoid watching the Olympics, Wimmins Soccer, party political broadcasts, the European song contest, anything to do with Meghan & Harry, the News on the BBC & CNN

  86. I’ve just watched a bit of the ‘limpics opening ceremony. Not very diverse – I didn’t see a single black, or for that matter, white face.

    Have the leftards mentioned anything about this?

  88. Goodnight all Nottlers. Bedtime music: Welcome To The Jungle – Vintage Orchestral Guns ‘n’ Roses Cover ft. Daniela Andrade. Folks, meet Daniela Andrade – a Canadian singer / songwriter that has already built a large following, thanks to her exceptionally beautiful voice and creative arrangements. She happened to be in LA the other week, and stopped by help us create an incredibly haunting version of the Guns ‘n’ Roses classic, “Welcome To The Jungle,” also featuring the incredible Lara Somogyi on harp. Enjoy!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjt-aYQO5zA

  89. BTL Comment endorsing the writing of John Ward over on The Slog:

    Keep at it John, even though I have been to the ‘Jabattoir’ I am a supporter.

  90. Both occupants of chez nous awoke this morning with very uncomfortable stomach aches and we both soon discovered we had Noro virus. I wont go into details but if you have had it you’ll know what I’m talking about. We caught it from our young grandchildren. I was only with them for two hours yesterday. Son’s got it now and his M i L.

    2. Ooh – nasty! Apparently there’s a lot of it about, even with all the extra hand washing & sanitising we do now.

    4. Oooh I remember seeing Pavarotti in the park. A very wet night and the people in the posh seats were asked not to put up their brollies. Took a week to dry out my shoes.

    5. After uncharacteristically hot sunshine in Argyll this afternoon, I am enjoying Prawns, Prosecco and Pavarotti in the Park, sweetie! … x

  92. Only just read all your offers from the other day.. Thanks to you all. Someone on the street has finally offered to help. Says a lot that it is another old person. Another said he would offer but he’d only just woke up from 4+ week in a coma – he’s now had to register as disabled. No way was I going to ask him. Feel terrible if anything else happened to him.
    The young will become the same one day. Again thanks. – P.S. – this oral morphine is good. Getting best sleep for years. Don’t worry if not on here every day.

    2. I must have missed your posts, walter and I don’t know what has happened but sending you good wishes and hope you get the help and support you need.

    3. Hullo Walter,
      I too have forgotten about your unwellness. Worth mentioning that Oramorph has some side-effects.
      From memory, one is constipation and another is occasional confusion between the dreams and then reality after waking up.
      Also, it can take half an hour to have an effect.

      1. Yes, i was told about the constipation, they gave me tablets for night and a fluid for the day. I too was amazed how long it took the Oramorph to start working. As for the confusion, I haven’t woke up feeling like an athlete nor a billionaire – will have to take a larger dose !!!!

    4. Hullo Walter,
      I too have forgotten about your unwellness. Worth mentioning that Oramorph has some side-effects.
      From memory, one is constipation and another is occasional confusion between the dreams and then reality after waking up.
      Also, it can take half an hour to have an effect.

    5. Good for you, Walter, in true NoTTLe spirit you KBO, despite the odds.

      Good luck and many more years to your spirited elbow, my friend.

      1. 335793+ up ticks,
        Evening N,
        “Hopefully” should NOT enter the equation tis a case of “them” for dominance or us for freedom and NOT freedom at a price, but freedom total NO political strings.

      2. 335793+ up ticks,
        Evening N,
        “Hopefully” should NOT enter the equation tis a case of “them” for dominance or us for freedom and NOT freedom at a price, but freedom

      3. Remember those absent Members of Parliament and the Lords have continued to receive full wages plus extras for computers etc., and have continued to claim massive expenses for travel, equipment, rents and mortgages and sundries allegedly for staff with, in effect, nothing whatever to do. We have been subjected to control by Johnson government decree as opposed to parliamentary process.

        I reckon this unholy motley crew needs must put monies aside for the ensuing court cases and prosecutions about to be visited upon them.

    3. As ever with the monster Johnson nothing has been thought through.

      By now everyone knows that the ‘vaccines’ do not work. The jabs to not prevent infection and do not provide immunity. Likewise masks are dangerous and lockdowns cause massive economic and societal damage. The jabs are also proven to be lethal for some in the short term and likely many more in the mid to longer term.

      It is also as plain as day that the past 18 months have been a worthless exercise in whacky behavioural environmental science, a circus run by clowns, uninformed by established clinical, epidemiology and virology expertise. Instead we have watched Johnson and his cabal of cretins hide behind the stooges with shares and income from Pharma and the CCP.

      Edit: The principal drivers of this scam are the PCR tests which are neither diagnostic tools nor reliable indicators of infection. They are useless as are the primitive Lateral Flow tests made in China for an American corporation. The PCR equipment was purchased by governments years before the claimed Covid pandemic. The entire fraud will have to be prosecuted.

      The pretence that we should be fearful and admit to this continuous assault on our civil liberties is pure evil and must be punished.

          1. He’s either from TCW or Independence Daily, originally. Pretty silly there as well.

  94. The future of shooting is looking bright

    A new coalition is ready to take on the critics of field sports

    IAN BOTHAM • 23 July 2021 • 6:00am

    It is very satisfying to announce the failure of your opponents. Yet today I can say with great confidence that those obsessives who have been trying to ban game shooting have lost the battle. The big development has been in your local supermarkets – Sainsbury’s, M&S and Waitrose all now stock game meat.

    More major chains are set to follow as the public appetite grows. It means that game dealers are approaching the new shooting season with empty freezers and big order books. This is an extraordinary turnaround from the days when game meat was given away. The Great British public are voting with their wallets.

    The main reason for this turnaround is the determined push to modernise the industry through its marketing board – the British Game Alliance. Its team is winning over the supermarket and catering sector by getting rid of lead shot – and bad apples. Any shooting estate which doesn’t comply with the rules will end up without a market. Game is now an assured product just like other meats.

    Yet there has also been a surprise supporter in the growth of demand for game. Through his ferocious attack on standards in chicken farming, Chris Packham has inadvertently encouraged thousands to switch to eating game.

    These ethical consumers consider the cramped conditions in which most chickens are raised during their very short lives and compare them with those of grouse – birds which spend all their lives roaming around the countryside. This ultimate in free-range food is winning.

    The fanatics who hate game shooting have also driven a second major change which is securing the industry’s future. Today, the Telegraph reports that a coalition of all the big shooting organisations has been formed. The mass-membership British Association of Shooting and Conservation, the campaigning Countryside Alliance, along with the public affairs experts of the Moorland Association and the National Gamekeepers’ Organisation have joined forces. When it comes to shooting we will be aiming in the same direction.

    Our patchwork quilt of organisations is uniting to talk to the Government and the media about how shooting can best be regulated to serve the interests of both human beings and the natural world they inhabit. Together as the “Aim to Sustain” coalition, we will push back on areas where we think policy is wrong. For instance, Defra’s decision to restrict the use of winter burns that reduce the height of vegetation will inevitably lead to catastrophic summer wildfires.

    Yet we will also be happy to work with Defra on tackling problems that remain. We agree on the need for zero tolerance of the illegal killing of birds of prey while also ensuring that no species gets out of balance. Defra’s inspired scheme for the managed growth of hen harriers has been a brilliant success, with record numbers of these birds.

    The haters of shooting have made a strategic mistake in thinking that they could make the sector into fox-hunting Mark II. With fox-hunting, the Marie Antoinette view of the countryside won the day – the public preferring to pretend that foxes don’t slaughter countless birds day and night. And there was no fox pie.

    Game shooting is different. It pulls together broad communities to bring in the harvest from the skies. For some, shooting is just a hobby. However, for thousands it is their livelihood – as gamekeepers, hoteliers and taxi drivers.

    Managing the countryside is complex – full of difficult choices about which species should be protected from which predators. So our alliance will be working with the pragmatists at Defra on how to maximise the common good. Where there are blinkered ideologues – and they exist in Defra – then we will precisely and relentlessly take on their flaky assertions. The limits they imposed on the culling of common gulls and crows has cost the lives of thousands of endangered curlew and plover. Defra made the wrong choices – these have been a stain on its reputation.

    We will also give no quarter to the RSPB. For decades it has made endless cheap accusations against shooting. It has preached at gamekeepers rather than working with these men and women who are responsible for vast swathes of the British landscape.

    Attacking shooting appears to have been a policy of distraction by the RSPB’s leadership to divert attention from failings in aspects of their 200 bird reserves. You can only guess the reason why the RSPB stopped publishing its bird numbers 10 years ago. The charity’s seeming unwillingness to control predators means that its reserves are disaster zones for breeding birds like hen harriers.

    By contrast, the gamekeepers in the new shooting alliance have a great story to tell about the extraordinary diversity of birdlife flourishing on their estates. Now the boot is on the other foot.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/22/future-shooting-looking-bright/

    BTL:
    Lubna Preston 24 Jul 2021 6:48PM
    Can someone flush out the bird from the eco-loon undergrowth in Downing St. and serve it up as a treat for Xmas before our gas is cut off?

      1. Oh dear, I seem to have attracted a downvoter.

        Free days are when the landowners invite families and such to meet the shoot. The other days are sold to city bankers and the like who turn up and pretend to knowledge of the countryside bringing their Birettas, Purdeys and other expensive shotguns to wound the foliage of oak trees because they are mostly useless shots.

        The point I wished to make was that the banker types disdain the locals.

        A client of mine would be invited to shoot on Guy Hands’ estate in Tuscany. It was a shoot reserved for the wealthy.

      2. Oh dear, I seem to have attracted a downvoter.

        Free days are when the landowners invite families and such to meet the shoot. The other days are sold to city bankers and the like who turn up and pretend to knowledge of the countryside bringing their Birettas, Purdeys and other expensive shotguns to wound the foliage of oak trees because they are mostly useless shots.

        The point I wished to make was that the banker types disdain the locals.

        A client of mine would be invited to shoot on Guy Hands’ estate in Tuscany. It was a shoot reserved for the wealthy.

  95. Good night all

    Fillet of brill baked with garlic and rosemary for supper. better than a tomahawk steak.

    1. Evening Conway. This forum has seemingly died the death for another day. Trust Oscar is falling into line and that you and yours are thriving.

        1. Yup. Not that pleasant here, just waiting for the promised electrical storms.

          Lovely to hear the laughter over the fence where my neighbours are entertaining. For a moment I imagined that we are now free of this Covid shit show. Time will tell.

      2. Evening, corim. Oscar has his ups and downs – he got the hair of his leg caught in the ring of his dog tag this evening. I had the Devil’s own job to free him without him sinking his teeth into me! I did manage it safely in the end, then I left him to ponder on the advisability of trying to bite someone who was trying to help. MOH is in hospital after falling down the stairs at the weekend. Due to the dementia it’s debatable whether release back home will be possible.

        1. That is very sad to hear – my own mother started at age 55 – at the time she was in a ward of a hospital – no expensive care homes back then.

        2. Without wishing to sound callous, will the hospital exit steps, processes (OT, social worker etc) and thresholds help you cause?

          1. I spent most of yesterday on the telephone with OT, social workers and nurses. It seems I shall have to pay for whatever outcome is decided.

        1. Thank you for your concern.

          Sinbad is doing fine. He sleeps a lot and needs the comfort of our attentions. He barks a lot too which is a good sign. The breed were intended to bark loudly in order to waken larger attack dogs from their slumber in Tibetan monasteries.

          He is a lovely little fellow and we are giving him medications every 8 hours, some tablets administered in fish paste which he loves, otherwise dissolved and administered with a syringe into his mouth when he is sleepy.

          Sinbad will eat more or less anything. Accordingly he is regaining his weight.

          Our cat Paris (Aged 21) continues to amaze us. By contrast with Sinbad, she is a bit fussy with food and loves her cat Tuna which we are buying in bulk. She is a bit particular about her dried food too but loves the occasional raw fillet steak trimmings and chicken breast off cuts. Anything she does not eat goes to Sinbad.

          1. Thank you for that – good to hear. Paris is amazing, isn’t she!
            Have you tried Zooplus (https://www.zooplus.co.uk/} for food and supplies. They have a lot of things not seen elsewhere. Paris would love the Tuna/Salmon loins from Applaws.
            I’m so pleased (for you too) that Sinbad is doing better. He’s lucky to have you.
            Thanks again for the comprehensive response.

          2. With the wholly negative nonsense over Covid, restrictions and non-sensical directives changing on an almost daily basis we have found a little solace in caring for Sinbad and Paris.

            People are still choosing to wear masks, which I find depressing.

            We take Sinbad to Nowton Park in Bury St Edmunds and Clare Country Park for his exercise. He loves the open air and seems very happy to lead us around the gardens.

          3. We are “cat people” and have found similar relief in our two (“rescued” from grandchildren) cats.

    2. Met a doggie yesterday. Growled and grrrrd at everyone. He got on with my little Chichuahua though. At a wedding reception and every time someone came near he went mental.

      1. Oscar gets on better with dogs than people. Because he looks such a cuddly teddy bear, I have to be quick to stop people stroking him (and possibly provoking a reaction – he’s somewhat unpredictable).

        1. Max is the same. He’s rescue too. He is a terrier like your pics but he has the long moustache too. Not sure what the mix is. My mate Sammy has him and he will obey her but if any man gets close it’s grrrrr

          1. With a rescue, you never know what’s happened to them before they went into the dogs’ home. I don’t think Oscar got much handling or fussing because he resented it at first (and they had to take him to the vet’s to be clipped!).

  97. I shall now re-iterate my Goodnight and God Bless, as itemised in Jules’ post earlier. See you all again, after church in the morn.

          2. Never having watched The Little House On The Prairie, I have no idea what you are talking about, D in K. I only know that your first name is John because NoTTLers keep calling you that. Good night and sleep well.

          4. Thanks for the correction, John, I have never watched that either. My childhood in South America where TV was in its infancy (or non-existent), followed by my career as a cinema manager in pre-video recorder days meant I missed a lot of TV programmes. Since my retirement I have been slowly catching up thanks to YouTube and DVD box sets. Currently I am watching an episode each of The Adventures Of Robin Hood, Bilko (The Phil Silvers Show), and Car 54, Where Are You? every evening. I have recently bought two box sets of the BBC’s THE GREAT WAR (WWI) and ITV’s THE WORLD AT WAR (WWII) to watch at my leisure over the winter – during the next lockdown?

          2. Yes, we are fine. Enjoying life as much as we can! We have not seen the same sort of restrictions as you, in the UK so time will tell!! But we have been out and about as much as we want to…enough of the negative vibes… that I see on here!!!

    3. Thank you for posting the photos of your day at Petworth on Thursday. When I saw them the replies had closed. It looks like it was a wonderful day! The afternoon tea looked delicious, delectable! And Oscar is a lovely dog. A dog makes all the difference.

      1. A dog does indeed make all the difference. I was bereft for the seven and a bit weeks I was without one. Tea was lovely – I had to bring some of the cakes home because I couldn’t manage them at the time! I enjoyed them the next day. It must be about three years since I was last there, with Charlie.

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